The Mon/Fayette Expressway links to the East Suburbs and downtown Pittsburgh could be completed in 10 years if funds were available and construction began tomorrow.

Yet the expressway may never get closer to Pittsburgh or the Monroeville-Penn Hills border than its current end point in Jefferson Hills if state lawmakers approve Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to privatize Turnpike operations.

"If the sale of the Turnpike occurs, I honestly have to say I think your project's dead," Turnpike CEO Joseph Brimmeier told about 100 people attending a town hall meeting on what the toll road means for the future of the East Suburbs and the Mon Valley held at McKeesport Area High School last week.

Brimmeier was among a panel of six experts who provided insight and fielded questions during the two-hour meeting. Many residents and officials attending expressed support for the project but others, including Braddock Mayor John Fetterman, raised concerns about the highway's impact on some communities.

The Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway are not included in the $12.8 billion proposal by a joint Spanish-American investment consortium to lease the Turnpike for the next 75 years.

That could spell the end of a much-needed bypass of the Squirrel Hill Tunnels for the East Suburbs and the original mission of revitalizing the Mon Valley brownfields after the decline of the steel industry by improving transportation.

"I would have to assume that there's no intent there to further the project unless it's picked up by somebody else, maybe PennDOT," Brimmeier said in response to a question asked by McKeesport Mayor Jim Brewster.

PennDOT is already facing its own financial challenges maintaining the state roadway system, said panelist Dan Cessna, PennDOT District 11 executive. Even with monies from Act 44, enacted last year to allow Turnpike revenues to be used for state roads and bridges, Brimmeier said PennDOT is not able to take on additional projects.

Brimmeier reaffirmed that, if the lease deal falls through, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is committed to finishing both the expressway and the Southern Beltway link to Pittsburgh International Airport.

Right now, money is the biggest obstacle.

"We need the dollars," Brimmeier said.

If table games were permitted at Don Barden's Majestic Star casino, revenues could be used specifically to construct the expressway, Brewster said. He also suggested profits made by non-profit health care concerns could be directed in the same way.

In March, the commission approved seeking public-private partnerships for financing and construction to help finish the Mon/Fayette in a timely fashion.

The expressway has already had an effect on development in areas from the West Virginia border to Jefferson Hills where the road is open, said panelist Joseph Kirk, executive director of The Mon Valley Progress Council. That could impact future development as well as the 1,400 companies that employ 23,000 on the nine major brownfields that lie in the 24-mile stretch between Route 51 and Pittsburgh.

While manufacturers want to get products out more efficiently, panelist Andy Quinn, community relations director for Kennywood Entertainment Inc., pointed out that the region's tourism industry needs good roads to bring people in.

"Currently in the valley, we have a lousy road system," Quinn said.

But not all officials view the expressway as a solution.

"It would absolutely devastate our town," said Braddock's Fetterman.

While the road may benefit white suburbanites, the mayor said the predominantly black community, which has the highest child asthma rate in the county, will bear the brunt of the project. He said running a four-lane highway through Braddock will put "a final stake in a community's heart."

Thousands of people drive through Braddock daily but don't stop to patronize those businesses that remain in the once-thriving town. No one driving 70 mph on a four-lane highway is going to stop either, Fetterman said.

State Rep. Joe Markosek (D-Monroeville), a panelist, said while the Parkway East, Parkway North and Parkway West have spurred development, the Mon Valley will not see growth until the Mon/Fayette, "the Parkway South," is completed.

Markosek pointed to the evolution of Monroeville from rural Patton Township to "a community that quite frankly was booming for years." He attributed the growth to the conglomeration of highways -- Turnpike, Parkway East and routes 22, 48 and 130.

But panelist Chad Amond, president of the Monroeville Chamber of Commerce, said Monroeville's growth stopped 10 years ago while the East Suburbs have watched the West and North areas grow.

Westinghouse, Monroeville's largest employer, is relocating to Cranberry and cited inadequate transportation to Pittsburgh and the airport as one reason for the move, he said.

A flat tire in the Squirrel Hill tunnel can snarl traffic from the east for an hour, Amond said. The Mon/Fayette Expressway would reduce Parkway traffic by 75 percent and traffic on city streets by 40 percent, he said.

"To stop now would be nothing short of insane," Amond added.

State Rep. David Levdansky (D-Elizabeth) recounted the history of the expressway, saying the links closest to Pittsburgh should have been built first.

"The priority segment to be built is right here in Allegheny County," Levdansky said. "We need to roll up our sleeves and find the money."

Brimmeier said he hopes to have the answer for completion of the expressway by the end of this year.

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Expressway route, effect on suburbs

The Mon/Fayette Expressway is seen as the alternative-route solution to the Parkway East bottleneck at the Squirrel Hill Tunnel, the avenue to encouraging redevelopment of the region's brownfields and eventually the road from Monroeville to Pittsburgh International Airport without having to travel through Downtown.

Provided funding can be obtained, the project will eventually link the Morgantown, W.Va., area with Pittsburgh.

The remaining link will run eight miles from Route 51 in Jefferson Hills Borough, along the McKeesport and Duquesne brownfields to the vicinity of Kennywood Park, then cross a new bridge over the Monongahela River before splitting into two legs.

One 10-mile fork will travel through North Braddock, Braddock, Rankin and Swissvale before entering Pittsburgh.

The six-mile eastern leg will travel through East Pittsburgh, Turtle Creek, Wilkins and Penn Hills before linking to the Parkway East in Monroeville.

Turtle Creek and Braddock are the two communities most impacted by the project.

Turtle Creek could lose as many as 79 residences, 19 businesses and one commercial establishment -- and Penn Plaza shopping center will have to be relocated.

Braddock would be hardest hit, standing to lose about 196 residences, 17 active businesses and eight community facilities, including the fire hall and post office.

In each of those areas, design advisory teams have been working with final design teams to develop solutions that are sensitive to both transportation and community needs.