|
By giving it a new name and some extra duties? Lets be real, SOMEONE has to build these roads, Penndot is doing a good job of maintaining and building roads. As to the "Highway to nowhere" the Mon-Valley Expressway, it was authorized by the State Legislature and had always been under funded. The reason is the cost to build ANY Road in Western Pennsylvania is Expensive do to the Topography (i.e. the hills) and the fact almost every part of Western Pennsylvania has been under-mined sometime in the last 200 years. Both problems INCREASE as you get nearer Pittsburgh AND you then add in the extra cost of building a highway through a built up Residential area.
The problem is ourselves, People want solution to the economy and for the last 50 years that has meant new highways. At the same time you have people who do NOT want to lose their homes do to new construction of such highways. Who resolves these disputes? While the State Legislature. Why don't the State Legislature resolve the issue? They want to get re-elected. Thus the state legislature avoids hard decision if at all possible. A smaller Legislature would actually make this worse, for each representative would have a larger number of people he would have to please to get elected (Thus I support getting rid of the State Senate but not touching the State Assembly, but the State Senate will not vote for its own demise even through it is the younger of the two bodies, made part of the State Constitution about 100 years AFTER the State Assembly was formed by William Penn).
Anyway until the reason Penndot gets nothing done is that the State Legislature restricts HOW the money is spent. Complaining about Penndot and the size of the State Legislature does NOT solve the problem. Getting people to accept the costs involved is the key. For example do most of the people on this Board from Pennsylvania support Spending almost 1 Billion Dollars to build a LRV line between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland? These are the # 2 and #3 stops in Pennsylvania (#1 is Downtown Philadelphia). Such a construction would be disruptive but help resolve the transportation mess between Downtown Pittsburgh and Oakland by taking the buses that run on Fifth and Forbes off those streets. Why little or no support? For one billion dollars is a lot of money for a 5 mile long Trolley line. It would be the best thing for Pittsburgh but the rest of the County will ask where's theirs? and we are back fighting over how to pay for the line. The best solution would be to convert as follows: 1. Convert the East and West Busways to run LRVs, 2. Run LRV lines along the old Pennsylvania Railroad line down the Ohio Valley then cross the Ohio to the Airport, 3. Run LRVs up the Allegheny River and 4. Running a LRV line along East Street to the North Hills thus everyone has a LRV near to their home.
The cost of such a program could be 4 to 5 billion dollars, but would remove a lot of Cars from the Highways. Why is it NOT supported? You need a consensus for such a plan to be adopted and until people start to DEMAND such a plan to be adopted the local politicians will NOT act. The same with paying the money to expand the Mon-Valley Expressway, until people start to say finish it and raise taxes to finish it, the Highway till not connect to anything.
|