Southern Beltway (Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Beaver Falls: neighborhood, new construction, closing)

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by SewickleyPA

It is a significant infrastructure upgrade in an area that could see some serious development take place with the existence of this highway.

ANY area would see serious development with a new highway! That's the entire reason Cranberry is the suburban sprawl it is today!

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by bradjl2009

Not to disagree with anyone, but most Americans still demand highways over public transportation for some reason.

It wasn't always this way, and I think sentiment is starting to shift back. The bottomline is that between rising energy costs and longer and more congested commutes, I think a lot of people are realizing that we have reached the point of sharply diminishing returns with a highway-focused development policy.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by SewickleyPA

It is a significant infrastructure upgrade in an area that could see some serious development take place with the existence of this highway.

For the money it would cost we could upgrade transportation for a lot more people and stimulate a lot more development with other projects.

[Hopes]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

For the money it would cost we could upgrade transportation for a lot more people and stimulate a lot more development with other projects.

Not to mention, I'm sure Allegheny County sometimes regrets 279 since so many people left the county for Cranberry.

[BrianTH]

Originally Posted by Hopes

Not to mention, I'm sure Allegheny County sometimes regrets 279 since so many people left the county for Cranberry.

Indeed. Generally, shuffling people around isn't the same thing as stimulating new development.

[Impala26]

Originally Posted by BrianTH

Indeed. Generally, shuffling people around isn't the same thing as stimulating new development.

I've actually heard this argument about the various development on the North Shore...

I mean the North Shore is at least only a one-hop away from downtown.

[BrianTH]

I'm quite skeptical about the way the North Shore has been developed myself, but as you noted at least they can argue it is leveraging a very convenient (and also riverfront) location. Picking a more or less arbitrary chunk of farflung farmland and then building a highway to it in order to stimulate development doesn't have that sort of argument going for it.

Generally, I think the notion that transportation infrastructure alone stimulates development has been a bit overblown, and that applies to advocates of all modes of transportation. Really, the winning strategy is to figure out where it makes sense for development to go for other, fundamental, reasons, then help facilitate (and maybe shape a bit) that process by providing the necessary transportation infrastructure. Now you can do that a bit in advance, which can be smart, but you are going to end up wasting money for no real purpose if you aren't thinking in those fundamental terms.

[truemuck]

Originally Posted by SewickleyPA

I think you are missing the point. It was stated on the turnpike site that routes 980 and 50 are not designed to handle the traffic that they currently do, and this would greatly relieve traffic on 79 and interchanges like the one at Bridgeville. It is a significant infrastructure upgrade in an area that could see some serious development take place with the existence of this highway.

Let me start off by saying, I'm usually not an anti-road person, but having driven through Pittsburgh many times (even during rush hour), I don't think 79 is really a source of traffic problems in the area, its the Parkways and Tunnels that get backed up. I thought the purpose of the Beltway was to relieve the Parkways and Tunnels?
But, if you look at the map on the PA Turnpike website,(http://www.paturnpike.com/monfaysb/d...ap_may2009.pdf) it goes so far to the south, that I don't think it would really provide a good Parkway alternative for people in the South Hills, which I think would be the main traffic generator for this road. People living there would have to go south then backtrack up north to get to the Airport or any of the other major Interstates. How would that save any time over going up Saw Mill Run or wherever to the Parkway? Now, granted if they did shift it north, you'd be plowing through some fairly dense neighborhoods and I don't think anyone would go for that.

I could maybe see the section of the Beltway west of 79, maybe giving some relief to the Parkway between 79 and Ikea and maybe making it easier for folks in northern Washington County to get to the airport, but I don't know whether that'd be worth it or not.

And I agree with folks about the stretch of the Mon-Fayette headed towards downtown, wherever it would connect to on the Parkway would just make more or a mess. The section of it heading to Monroeville might be good as it would get a lot of N-S traffic off of 279 and the Parkways and local roads heading down to the Mon Valley.

[greg42]

Yeah, where it is on that map is too far south, and it probably can't easily be any farther north. That section between I-79 and US 22, that'll be of some use but not a lot.

The biggest problem is the bottlenecks downtown can't be expanded. How do you expand the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, or the Fort Pitt Tunnel and Bridge, or the bits of parkway between them? There's nowhere more to go with most of that. This is why they would look at totally new roads, but that comes with its own difficulties as we see. It's a tough problem.

[SewickleyPA]

Originally Posted by greg42

The biggest problem is the bottlenecks downtown can't be expanded. How do you expand the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, or the Fort Pitt Tunnel and Bridge, or the bits of parkway between them? There's nowhere more to go with most of that. This is why they would look at totally new roads, but that comes with its own difficulties as we see. It's a tough problem.

I don't see why it would be impossible to widen the Squirrel Hill tunnels 1 lane each. Only the Fort Pitt tunnels have a bridge complicating things. If they have the money to drill a billion dollar transit tunnel under the river, then they can easily upgrade two already existing tunnels.