Kathy Liebler
                        Director of Public Information


C   O   M   M   I   S   S   I   O   N                N   E   W   S             R   E   L   E   A   S   E   

Contact:   Joe Agnello, (724) 755-5262, (724) 755-5142 fax
                 e-mail: jagnello@paturnpike.com

April 6, 1999


CONTRACT AWARDED FOR MORE MON/FAYETTE EXPRESSWAY CONSTRUCTION

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission today awarded New Enterprise Stone and Lime company of Bedford County a $19.2 million contract to construct a 1.7-mile stretch of the Mon/Fayette Expressway that will extend north from Stone Church Road in Union Township, Washington County to Gill Hall Road in Jefferson Hills Borough, Allegheny County.

Other work in the contract includes:

  • construction of a nine-tenths mile long extension of Peters Creek Road south from Gill Hall Road to Piney Fork Road in South Park Township, Allegheny County. Peters Creek Road is being extended to replace access into Jefferson Hills from South Park that will be lost when Snowden Road is closed as a through roadway on either side of the new expressway.
  • construction of a multi-use trail, 10 feet wide with an asphalt surface, adjacent to the Peters Creek Road extension. The trail will be part of the Montour Trail.
  • preliminary development of a site on Gill Hall Road, northwest of Gill Hall Road’s intersection with Ridge Road, where the Turnpike Commission will construct a maintenance facility.

Construction Section 52J is part of the 17-mile Mon/Fayette Expressway Project that will link Interstate 70 in Fallowfield Township, Washington County with Pa. Route 51 in Jefferson Hills.

Seven bids for the construction contract were opened March 10 at theTurnpike’s central office near Harrisburg. New Enterprise Stone and Lime was the apparent low bidder and, after review, was deemed the lowest qualified bidder at $19,260,510. The highest bid was $24.4 million.

This is the third Mon/Fayette Expressway construction section that has been contracted to New Enterprise Stone and Lime, including one farther south in Washington County and one on the Mon/Fayette Expressway’s Mason Dixon Link in Fayette County. Its three contracts total more than $74.5 million.

New Enterprise Stone and Lime also is the apparent low bidder, at $49.2 million, for Construction Section 52H immediately to the south of 52J. Construction Section 52H includes 3.1 miles of expressway in Union Township, Washington County as well as the interchange with Finleyville-Elrama Road. Eight bids opened on March 31 are being reviewed.

Companies based in southwestern Pennsylvania have won some $286 million of the $313 million worth of Mon/Fayette Expressway construction contracts awarded since October 1994.

Mashuda Corporation of Butler County is the leader in terms of the number of construction contracts (six) and collective value (more than $97 million). Mashuda was the second-lowest bidder for Construction Section 52J and submitted the fourth lowest of the Construction Section 52H bids now under review.

All construction contracts for the Pennsylvania leg of the Mason Dixon Link have been awarded. It is targeted for completion late this year. The expressway from I-70 to Pa. Route 51 is targeted for completion in late 2001. The Turnpike Commission expects to complete bidding for its remaining construction sections by the end of 1999.

Prospective alignments for two other Mon/Fayette Expressway projects are under study as the Turnpike Commission continues to compile information for required Environmental Impact Statements. One of those is from Uniontown to the Brownsville area. The other is the Pittsburgh link, which is to extend north from Route 51 in Jefferson Hills to connections with Interstate 376 in the City and near Monroeville.

The four component projects, along with small sections in the California and Uniontown areas that have been open for some time, would stretch about 65 miles south from Pittsburgh through the Monongahela River Valley and western Fayette County to Interstate 68 just east of Morgantown, West Virginia.

 

 P.O. Box 67676, Harrisburg, PA 17106-7676         Phone: (717) 939-9551         Fax: (717) 986-9649