• Font Size    

Most Popular Videos Featured On KDKA.com

Pittsburgh Festivities Kickoff Holidays
E-mail

Close Window E-mail This Page

Residents Upset Over Southern Beltway Project

Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

Send E-mail

   Print     Share +   
Nov 6, 2009 6:30 pm US/Eastern

Residents Upset Over Southern Beltway Project

(KDKA) It's a road that may never be built and yet scores of people are being driven from their homes.

The Southern Beltway is no closer to becoming a reality than it was a decade and half ago, but people are still losing their homes anyway.

The Beltway Project has money for engineering and land acquisition, but there's no money for the actual construction and there may never be. Yet in communities like Cecil Township, there are houses boarded up for demolition.

"It has dragged on a long time and in talking with the Turnpike Commission, there's no indication that it's not going to drag on a lot longer," says Wesley Johnson, Cecil Township planner.

And what's even more galling to the people in the highway's path is that the primary purpose of the Southern Beltway is to hook up the airport corridor with the Mon-Fayette Expressway, a road that has also run out of funding after $2.5 billion were spent on piecemeal sections that few people use.

For a dollar and a quarter you can ride on one of those sections, but you won't see many other cars.

The Turnpike Commission, which is building both the Southern Beltway and the Mon-Fayette, openly concedes that the projects are of limited value.

Turnpike Executive Director Joe Brimmeier says he has a special sympathy for those being displaced since the same thing happened to his family as a kid.

"So, I understand what it's like to be uprooted when you didn't have plans to do it and you really didn't want to do it," says Brimmeier. "That's why I offered them the option."

Brimmeier says he realized that plans for the beltway have thrown people into limbo for more than a decade - depressing their property values and making it nearly impossible for them to sell.

So, he offered fair market value for their land now, even though there's no money to build the road and may never be.

"At some point, I want to make an announcement that we're either going to have the money to continue building segments of the road or just to tell people it's over," said Brimmeier. "That's all the building there's going to be. "

And Brimmeier says that announcement may come very soon - that both projects are indeed dead - a bitter pill to swallow for those who have already given so much.

Lynne Cochran who's losing her home says it's all been a waste of money.

"If I were king of the world and I were given this money, the first thing I would do is repair all the bridges and roads that we have right now," said Cochran.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Featured Slideshows On KDKA.com

You need the latest Flash player to view video content.
Click here to download.

Click here to bypass this detection if you already have the latest Flash Player.

Local News

Top News Stories

© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.