Please, No More MFX Meetings

Category: Rants a.k.a. Commentary, The Mo-Fo Excessway || By

You may have noticed that I didn't go to the Mon-Fayette Expressway "town hall" at McKeesport Area High School last week.

I tried. Oh, Lordy, I tried. In case you haven't noticed, I'm doing independent half-baked guerrilla journalism at the Almanac, and covering events helps me maintain my street cred.

But I do have a real job (you don't think this pays my bills, do you?) and by the time I got done at work, I would have had to race to MAHS.

Besides, I just couldn't muster what Jeff Kay would call "a single dingle" of enthusiasm over the idea of listening to the same old talking heads make the same old talking points.

Maybe I'm a weak man, but I just can't listen any more.

. . .

I went to my first MFX "information session" at First Presbyterian Church in Duquesne during the summer of my sophomore year of high school. That was almost 20 years ago.

Nothing much has changed since then, except that my mullet has become a comb-over.

In case you missed the coverage in the Tribune-Review, the Daily News, and the Gateway weeklies, here were the panelists:

• Joe Kirk, executive director of the Mon Valley Progress Council, which basically exists to plump for the Mon-Fayette Expressway;


• Andy Quinn, director of community relations of Kennywood, who has been an MFX backer for at least a decade;


• Chad Amond, president of the Monroeville Area Chamber of Commerce, which wants the MFX as a bypass around the Squirrel Hill Tunnels; and


• Joe Markosek, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, who represents Monroeville, and who also wants the MFX as a bypass around the Squirrel Hill Tunnels.

The panel also included Joseph Brimmeier, CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. (Well, gee, he's certainly an impartial expert!)

That wasn't a town meeting. It was a pep rally.

Shame on the "Trib Total Media" newspapers (including the Daily News) for presenting this manufactured publicity stunt as if it was really a "forum" for discussion.

. . .

The arguments of MFX supporters are starting to become more and more strident, like those of the far-left and far-right in this country. If you disagree with any of President Bush's policies, the right calls you unpatriotic; if you agree with any of them, the left calls you a fascist.

Similarly, Mon-Fayette boosters like to deride opponents of the highways as "elitists" and "environmentalists."

Well, if living next to Bettis and driving a big V-8 powered yacht to work every day makes me an "elitist" and an "environmentalist," then paint me green and call me Tim Robbins.

. . .

Here's the thing: As longtime readers (both of you) know, I have really tried to warm up to the MFX.

But I resent being told that there are no possible drawbacks to an expressway that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania can't afford to build, and can't afford to maintain once it's built.

I'm also tired of being told that the MFX is the only redevelopment solution for the Mon Valley.

Dozens of metropolitan areas are in terrible shape despite having expressways and beltways.

Have you driven through Youngstown lately? Expressways didn't do anything to keep industry and population from fleeing the Ohio Valley.

. . .

Some MFX backers point to the "success" of Cranberry Township and Southpointe as evidence that an expressway breeds development.

First, I'm not convinced that big sprawling shopping plazas are sustainable in the long-term when gasoline is topping four dollars a gallon.

Second, Butler and Washington counties offered virgin, untouched farmland for development. It's a lot cheaper to plow up farmland than to rehabilitate old millsites, like the ones in the Mon Valley.

After all, if expressways were great at spurring redevelopment of brownfields, then Washington, Pa., would be a boom town --- it's at the intersection of two interstates.

. . .

Well, I worked in Washington, and parts of it look just as bad as the worst parts of McKeesport and Duquesne.

Or, take a ride up the Beaver Valley Expressway --- a Turnpike Commission owned-and-operated toll road, like the MFX. I don't see very much development in former mill towns like Monaca, New Brighton and Ambridge.

Hell, I-70 is adjacent to Monessen and Charleroi! What has I-70 done for Monessen? Nothing.

. . .

Expressways are not a magic solution to the Mon Valley's woes. Unfortunately for us, the powers that be haven't tried to come up with any other solutions, because they've wasted the last 20 years talking about this expressway.

Yes, despite squandering thousands of hours and millions of dollars, they have almost nothing to show for their effort except an endless series of town meetings and some very expensive blueprints.

And after 20 years of supposedly working diligently on the section of the MFX that's supposed to be built inside Allegheny County, they still have no idea how to pay for it.

. . .

MFX proponents, here's my personal plea:

Please don't hold any more Mon-Fayette Expressway forums, town halls, information sessions, public meetings, comment periods, open houses, coffee klatches, bake sales, interpretative dances or orgies.

If you haven't convinced us after 20 years, you're not going to convince us now. And if you don't really want to hear dissenting opinions, then you're wasting our time and yours.

Either come up with a way to pay for the damned thing, or --- for the sake of all of us and the Mon Valley that I love --- shut up and move on.

Your Comments are Welcome!

I like Jim Brewster, but I saw him on National television last Fall saying that developers don’t want to come to his town because the MFX doesn’t come close enough to McKeesport. I’ve always found that hard to believe. If someone would clean up the mill site, get an economic analysis for the best use of the site, and move forward with a plan to redevelop the waterfront.
John M. - May 28, 2008

Preach!
Andrea (URL) - May 28, 2008

Not to disparage the panelists — I think they truly believe in the need for the proposed highway — but they are the proverbial broken record that became the defective 8 track, jammed cassette tape, scratched cd, and now, an mp3 recording of the original vinyl, that repeats the same line over and over. They seem to see that technology has changed the way we live, and how and where goods are produced, but they haven’t figured out how that applies to their mission.

Keystone Opportunity Zones, half-empty industrial parks and “if we build it they will come” are not the foundation of a visionary 21st century economic plan. Where is the town hall meeting on that subject? How many Mon Valley municipal officials attended the recent CEOs for Cities conference held in Pittsburgh? Are any of them familiar with Pitt Professor Mike Madison’s “Manifesto for a New Pittsburgh?” Have they read the work of the late urban activist and writer, Jane Jacobs? Do they understand the opposing viewpoints of Richard Florida and Joel Kotkin regarding urban policy? Why aren’t studies and plans by groups like the Southwestern Planning Commission and Penn Future more prominent in the region’s goals? What about the Metro plan in Portland, OR, and Nashville, TN? Why is the Nordenberg Report treated like a red-headed stepchild by local municipalities? Do we have a death wish? Are we afraid of, dare I say it … CHANGE?
Strisi - May 29, 2008

You asked a very good question: “Why aren’t studies and plans by groups like the Southwestern Planning Commission and Penn Future more prominent in the region’s goals?”

Which begs the additional questions “What ARE the region’s goals” and “Who set them”, and “Where can they be found”. Oh I could go on and on just from that one question you asked.

Inquiring minds want to know.
Bulldog - May 29, 2008

Taking off my PennFuture hat for a moment, let me clarify that the SPC’s “Project Region” in theory IS the articulation of the region’s long-term goals, and the public participation that went into the development of that vision all agreed that infill and transit-oriented development would totally be the way to go, and that the current MO is unsustainable and unaffordable.

The thing is, no one took the effort to reform the way projects come up the SPC pipe, and no one is holding a gun to any commissioners’ heads to force them to keep to the principles when considering new projects.

Why, just in January the commissioners voted to put one section of the Southern Beltway back on the 2035 Transportation & Economic Development Plan, merely because the Turnpike asked them to. The project still sucks, it’s still a big vehicle for sprawl and greenfield development, it’s still unaffordable, and the SPC received close to a hundred comments specifically decrying the attempt to re-instate the Southern Beltway on the Plan (and exactly ONE supporting it) — but they all (with a small handful of quiet exceptions) just shrugged and voted to let the Turnpike keep eating up Allegheny County greenspace. Sheesh.

So: the answer to your question about why the good stuff doesn’t show up in the project rosters more often? Politics. Money. Power. Also, the public support needed to move projects through the system is really considerable — and hard to organize, since this stuff is really complicated.

Consider: the Turnpike will soon have spent $100 million on the Pittsburgh leg of the MFX, and they haven’t even come close to the point where they could consider acquiring right-of-way, nevermind laying concrete. $100 million on design, re-design, engineering investigations, public meetings, big pretty printed plates of drawings and elevations, food for the public officials who attend their meetings, more designs, more drawings, etc. Just imagine what kind of progress could have been made on, say, re-building Route 51, if the municipalities in the Route 51 corridor had even a fraction of that kind of money to move their plan forward. Folks think the Mon-Fayette is the only option left open — but in truth, it’s just the only idea that has enough funding to buy press and staff time dedicated to lobbying for it 24/7.
andrea - May 29, 2008

I’ll take the blame for the “enviromentalist” aspersion cast at MFE opponents. My bad.

I hate to look back but what if the original Mon Fayette wasn’t blocked forty years ago? My understanding is that a guy we build clocks to honor, had the NRA block the original plan….

Here is my official stand:

1) The Valley DOES need better highway access.
2) We also need to take responsibility for our local infrastructure and tax systems if we want our MV communities to be marketable to business and potential homeowners.

Jason is exactly correct. Highways by themselves do not ensure economic development. Local infratructure and taxes matter. Greatly.

You mentioned other counties that are developing. One could look at their millage and tax systems to get a clue to as why.

I don’t think toll roads (in general) are a good idea. Folks and truckers avoid them in general.

I do know that we need better highway access (if we believe we can manufacture here.) and better infrastructure with friendlier taxes.

Our delining popoulation, across the county, is killing us. The less people we have here, the less political clout we have as a region.

-Councilman Shelly
Paul "Sluggo" Shellly (URL) - May 30, 2008

This road needs to be built. The pittsburgh south area needs a road to get into the city. also the beltway is a great idea. we need one all the way around the city not just from the airport to monroeville
ll - July 29, 2008

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