Daily Item coverage of CSCC meetup about the Thruway

Thanks to the Daily Item for covering CSCC's session on the Thruway. The Standard-Journal also sent a reporter, so an article will likely appear soon.

Thanks also to Ryan Unger of SEDA-COG, who did an excellent job of explaining where we are in the process and why the process is so messy. There are several different agencies and units of government involved, all of which are dealing with their own challenges.

For at least the rest of 2010, we seem to be in an "all or nothing" phase. Why not split up the project? Because then new impact statements would have to be prepared for each part, and then we're looking at another long delay. If the project can clear two big hurdles--one at the level of the Appalachian Development Highway System, the other at the level of the Federal Highway Reauthorization Act--the whole project could move forward sooner rather than later. Those are two bigs IFs. If those things don't happen this year, then we are probably back to the drawing board.

Before this presentation, I didn't know that 90% of the truck traffic (and 50% of the car traffic) on the Golden Strip is just passing through. There's no question that this project is worth doing--it's "just" a matter of finding about $525 million--and the 20% of that coming from the state is probably going to be the hardest to find. Pennsylvania has maintenance needs that aren't paid for, so it's hard to come up with money for new construction to relieve congestion. Gas tax money isn't paying for all that needs to be done, in part because the tax is per gallon, and fewer gallons are sold when the price is high.

Is it going to get done? I don't know--probably not any time soon. We have one big advantage: everybody seems to agree that this thing ought to be built--it's the last piece of a puzzle that extends from Canada down to Maryland. Given the current budget climate though, it's going to take some creativity to figure out how the financing happens.