Progress Pittsburgh

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• The Hot Sheet » Blog Archive » What’s hot in the streets for 2009? – There’s so many things to do, so little time: what should the PA League prioritize in 2009? Well, we’re asking our supporters for their input!
• Free Wheels: The Scraper Bike Movement Rolls On – Interesting look at a bike program for youth in Oakland, CA.
• Keeping it in the driveway – Brian O'Neill article on Brookings Institute study on driving.
  When I asked about the Mon-Fayette Expressway, that billion-dollar-plus toll road that ends well south of Pittsburgh, he called it "a great example of a roadway project we may need to rethink."

Image by Getty Images via DaylifeI was just reading the latest email from Michael Moore about bailing out the big three automakers – I like that he offers an alternative to the bailout, I don’t know if it is the right alternative but it is helpful to see some alternative ideas discussed (I am including these ideas below).  The first point in his suggestion is about transportation.  This made me think about the MonFayette Expressway.  There is a notion from the Mon Valley that we must build a super highway to the Mon Valley or business will never thrive there.  So lets do some brainstorming – what are some alternatives to building the Mon Fayette Expressway?

So what to do? Members of Congress, here’s what I propose:

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.

2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You’re going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the “loan,” and because we know they will default on that loan, you’re going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.)

3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

More »

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• Null Space: watching the bus drive by – "More politics involved this time for sure, but one of my answers is that the Port Authority's upper Management and fellow travelers have spent a lot more time and effort on PR this time around. Think about that some."
• Diondega 412: Bram & The Trib weigh in on Ford-Gate. – Are these voices a militant minority of Luke-Haters? Or does this reflect a bigger problem for the Mayor as the 2009 primary nears. STAY TUNED.
• Arizona governor stumps here for Obama – Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano — in town today campaigning for the Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama — received an earful today from Obama supporters worried the campaign isn't pushing back hard enough against attacks by Sen. John McCain.
• Fewer driving that long, lonesome Mon-Fayette Expressway – Barry Stout – "I'm as totally committed today as I was in 1970, when the Mon-Fayette Expressway wasn't a cubic yard of concrete," he said. "Soon we'll have 57 miles. This is a road we're building for the future, for our grandchildren, so they won't have to leave southwestern Pennsylvania to work and live."

  Sigh – how can we get these officials to see that the future of Western PA is not going to be determined by more super highway – if you want to think future think mass transit please!

• Shields calls for probe of URA deals, irks mayor – "Mr. Ravenstahl responded in a statement that Mr. Shields "has forgotten that he was sent to council to do the people's business, not to promote a political agenda focused on hurting me and aggrandizing himself."

  Dear Luke – it isn't all about you. It is the people's business to maybe question why you are spending lots of taxes payer money for settlements with people that you are supposed to be working with to move Pittsburgh forward. Thank You

Here are some blog posts, article and links that you may have missed.

• Biden will lead city’s Labor Day parade – Pittsburgh Tribune-Review – Joe Biden will be in Pittsburgh on Monday to walk in Pittsburgh labor day parade which is one of the largest in the country.
• Letters to the editor – MonFayette Expressway – 2 Letters to the editor in todays Post-Gazette against the Mon-Fayette Express way plans.
• The Hot Sheet · The Latest News from the Pennsylvania League of Young Voters – The PA League of Young Voters has a new website to see upcoming events and pictures posted right from the field.

As we mentioned last week – the Post-Gazette has an online poll about the MonFayette Expressway.

Do you want a private-public partnership to pay half of the $3.6 billion cost of completing the Mon-Fayette Expressway?

Click here to vote at the Post-Gazette.com 

The responses have shifted in the past few days

• A. Yes, the road needs to be completed -
  • Feb 4 – 341 (55%)
  • Feb 11 – 1163 (45%)
• B. No, let the state fund it
  • Feb 4 -  57 (9%)
  • Feb 11 – 258 (10%)
• C. I oppose the entire project
  • Feb 4 – 219 (35%)
  • Feb 11 – 1192 (46%)

Do you want a private-public partnership to pay half of the $3.6 billion cost of completing the Mon-Fayette Expressway?

Click here to vote at the Post-Gazette.com  – the poll is open from Feb. 4 to Feb. 11.

Current Results:

A. Yes, the road needs to be completed – 341 (55%)

B. No, let the state fund it – 57 (9%)

C. I oppose the entire project – 219 (35%)

Geeks like me who were following closely what the state was doing to solve our transportation funding crisis last year looked at Act 44 and saw a loose collection of half-assed solutions mixed in with a few new problems. Bond financing, tolling I-80, blah blah blah — not enough money to solve the real crisis, and it’ll run out relatively quickly, but whatever: it’s new money, we really need it, and no alternative option had any legs.

What we didn’t see was the little clause permitting the Turnpike to pick toll-payers’ pockets at will to build as many of their boondoggle extension projects as they want. (See this document, page 3.) On Monday, the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission is scheduled to meet to decide whether or not they’ll permit the Turnpike to raise $1.5 billion in new toll revenue from I-76 in order to build the 12-odd miles of the Southern Beltway connecting US22 to I79.

Wait, you say, I thought the SPC had to shelve $19 billion in unmet basic maintenance and operations needs for roads, bridges and public transit in our 10-county region in the last long-range plan? How does the Turnpike get to waltz in and build an expensive new-capacity project where we don’t need it?

Mais facilement, replies the Turnpike Commission: we’ll just hike tolls on I-80 to fund new bonds. No federal or state taxes need be levied. No harm, no foul!

But the thing is, of course, that even if the money to build the SO.B. isn’t coming out of SPC’s federal budget, any future connections to the road would have to fall on SPC’s shoulders — nevermind the additional wear and tear that all the new traffic on the SO.B. would put on existing state and county roads. Sprawl is expensive, there’s just no way around that.

Everyone who’s sent a note deploring this move to the SPC’s new chairman, Dan Onorato, has received a boilerplate email in response saying thanks so much for your opinion, and by the way Dan is a huge fan of the Pittsburgh leg of the Mon-Fayette. WTF? Sure the two projects are related, inasmuch as they’re both dumb road projects under the Turnpike’s control, but last time I checked the sections in question don’t even touch — and it’s pretty unlikely that drivers on the one will also be using the other. No brownfields are served by the SO.B. Can’t even pretend that it’s good for re-development — heck, it’s plowing through totally undeveloped greenspace.

What’s more, the Turnpike is flying totally under the radar with this. The comment period for this proposal straddled Christmas, New Year’s and MLK day; media coverage has been almost nil; and Onorato and several other key commissioners aren’t even planning to be at Monday’s meeting.

If you have some extra time, though, it could be more entertaining than your average SPC meeting.

4:30 pm
Regional Enterprise Tower (425 Sixth Ave.)
31st Floor

Come early, sign up for your rightful 3 minutes and let the commissioners know how you feel about this sneaky, underhanded and wrong-headed move.

If you can’t make it, you can always take action through PennFuture’s website. Click here to send an email to your reps.