FINDLAY CONNECTOR OVERVIEW
Southern Beltway Project – Pa. Route 60 to U.S. Route 22

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s $240 million Findlay Connector opened for traffic at 3 pm Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2006, following a ribbon cutting ceremony that included Governor Edward G. Rendell, state Senator J. Barry Stout and Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato.
“This is a relatively small but critical piece of the infrastructure puzzle that will better equip southwestern Pennsylvania to compete for people and private investment,” said Turnpike CEO Joe Brimmeier. “It brings a much-needed, modern highway link to the Route 60 Expressway and our world-class Pittsburgh International Airport.”

As an independent project with stand-alone utility, the Findlay Connector substantially reduces travel times to the airport corridor for trips originating in northern Washington County and in the Weirton, W.Va./Steubenville, Ohio area. This helps to ease congestion and enhance safety.

As a component of the proposed 32-mile Southern Beltway, it will serve the Southpointe area, the mid-Monongahela River Valley and even Monroeville and Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs as a new alternative route to the airport and the Route 60 corridor extending north to Interstate 80 between Sharon and Mercer.

“Improved access and mobility will bring new opportunities for jobs and personal growth to a higher percentage of the region’s population,” Brimmeier stated. “Ours and other infrastructure projects make the Findlay Connector corridor as primed for development as any location in Allegheny County and we believe the opening of this highway will help unleash that potential.”
The interchange at the northern terminus of the Findlay Connector provides direct access into and out of Pittsburgh International Airport as well as a full choice of movements onto and off of the Route 60 Expressway.

Altogether, construction of the Findlay Connector involved 21 new bridges, more than 11.3 million cubic yards of excavation (moving enough earth to fill PNC Park 26 times), 313,300 square yards of new concrete pavement and 101,400 feet of new drainage pipe.

Fare collection lanes are located at the Route 22, Burgettstown/Bald Knob and Route 30 interchanges (on the northbound on ramps and the southbound off ramps). There is no mainline toll barrier on the Findlay Connector because all traffic that uses the road will have to pass through fare collection facilities on the aforementioned on and off ramps. Fare collection lanes are equipped to process E-ZPass (electronic) transactions.

One of the construction contracts ($886,351) involved the creation of approximately 8.2 acres of replacement wetlands on McConnell’s Hill Farm in Independence Township, Beaver County by Shawrose, Inc. of Coraopolis. The Turnpike has turned these replacement wetlands over to the Beaver County Conservation District, which has an 18-acre wetlands site about 1.5 miles away.

The Beaver County Conservation District is a non-profit organization committed to the preservation of natural resources and technical services to improve resource management.
Most of the land surrounding the new highway is abandoned or reclaimed strip mines. The Findlay Connector Project proved to be a catalyst for the construction of long-term treatment systems for acid mine drainage affecting the Montour Run Watershed.

Initially, a $75,000 treatment system for acidic drainage percolating from an abandoned underground coal mine exposed during excavation work for the new roadway has been constructed to help protect the water quality of nearby Montour Run and the 37-square-mile Montour Run Watershed.

Representatives of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Allegheny County Airport Authority announced the completion of the treatment system at a media event held September 2, 2004, near the Findlay Connector’s interchange with U.S. Route 30.

“We are very pleased with the work the Turnpike Commission has performed and, with the cooperation of the Allegheny County Airport Authority, in the installation of settling ponds located within the authority’s right-of-way,” said Scott Roberts, DEP’s Deputy Secretary for Mineral Resources. “We also are pleased with the commission’s shared interest in seeing the discharge treated on a long-term basis, which we will assist by funding the conversion of the settling ponds into wetlands.”

On November 4, 2004, DEP awarded the Montour Run Watershed Association a $300,367 Growing Greener grant for the construction of a passive mine drainage treatment system on the North Fork of Montour Run that will utilize the sediment basins built for the Turnpike Commission’s highway construction.

The permanent passive treatment system for drainage leaching from the abandoned Clinton No. 1 Mine will be built after the Findlay Connector is completed. It is expected to remove approximately 19,000 pounds of acidity and 6,000 pounds of metals annually from the North Fork of Montour Run.

Mashuda Corporation of Cranberry Township, the general contractor for construction of the southern two-thirds of the connector, blasted a drainage trench in the mine floor and filled it with processed limestone. The company installed a partially open drainpipe on top of the trench. The drainage is directed through the limestone inside the trench to allow the limestone to increase the alkalinity of the drainage and cause the iron and aluminum to settle out.
Once it flows through the trench, the mine drainage goes into the settling ponds where the metals continue to settle out. The water is then discharged into the Montour Run tributary.
After about 20 to 25 years, DEP expects the limestone to be fully coated with iron and aluminum and rendered ineffective. At that point, the drainage will begin to flow on top of the coated limestone and into the concrete drainage pipe, which will then carry the discharge to wetlands that will be built using the former settling ponds. The concrete itself will help increase the alkalinity of the discharge.

Dick Corporation of Jefferson Hills built the northern third of the Findlay Connector, including the tie-ins to the Route 60 Expressway and Pittsburgh International Airport.
Construction management services were provided by McTish, Kunkel & Associates/Raintree Consulting.