A state transportation report due in November could help Western Pennsylvania leaders devise a strategy to raise the $3.5 billion still needed to complete the Mon Fayette Expressway.
Officials say the state Transportation and Funding Reform Commission's report due Nov. 15 won't propose specific projects to pay for completion of the $5.4 billion toll highway that would link Pittsburgh and the Mon Valley with Interstate 68 near Morgantown, W.Va.
Instead, the report is expected to offer innovative methods to finance road projects.
Among the ideas under consideration are tolling highways and forming agreements with private companies to build or operate highways. Australian company MacQuarie Group has been studying the Mon Fayette and may propose buying or leasing the highway in return for completing its construction.
"We're not going to find dollars in a conventional manner," said commission member Jim Roddey, the former Allegheny County chief executive. "It's just not in anyone's budget."
State Sen. Barry Stout, a Bentleyville Democrat who is the expressway's biggest political supporter, said the report would open the door for a financial solution.
"As we address the other transportation needs of Pennsylvania, I would see it as an opportunity to get some other funds for the turnpike," he said.
An Urban Land Institute report issued May 23 showed the state Turnpike Commission was about $3.5 billion short in paying for the expressway project.
Commission CEO Joe Brimmeier said last week that state legislators would have to decide whether to pay for the remaining work. Legislative leaders said the decision depends on whether Western Pennsylvania lawmakers are unified in backing the project.
Gov. Ed Rendell created the transportation commission last year to propose solutions for helping cash-strapped transit agencies, paying to fix aging bridges and improving more highways.
Joe Kirk, executive director of the Mon Valley Progress Council, said the benefits of the expressway make it a regional priority.
"I think you squeeze it in by saying it is crucial and the only one specifically geared to economic revitalization, especially in an area devastated by the lack of a transportation network," he said. "The other part, which is equally important, is there has to be some role from the federal government."
The federal government has paid $78.5 million toward the project, and Stout said it should provide more.
Other key backers, including county Chief Executive Dan Onorato, are not sure where the money will come from to complete the job.
"I think we've done a good job convincing people that it's a worthwhile project, but the numbers are just so huge," Onorato spokesman Kevin Evanto said. "In the end, if it can't be built, then it can't be built."
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