PennFuture is thrilled to introduce our first video podcast, or vidcast, or vodcast, depending on who you ask. No matter: tune in to see and hear why you should join us and many others in supporting a moratorium on prematurely buying and demolishing thousands of homes and businesses throughout Pittsburgh and other communities in the Monongahela River Valley.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and backers of the Mon-Fayette toll road have for decades been pushing for a Turnpike expansion that would extend from Pittsburgh to Morgantown, West Virginia. To date, they’ve spent over $1.1 billion on the project, but are nowhere close to completion.

The latest move is that backers of the Turnpike expansion want to buy thousands of homes and businesses in the right of way for a 24-mile section of the toll road (PA 51 to I-376) and demolish them– but they have NO money to actually build even an inch of road. And no plan for generating the measly $2.7 billion (and growing!) estimated to construct the project.

The result: indefinite uncertainty about land use and community revitalization plans, loss of tax revenues for already-strapped school districts and municipalities, and creation of blight.

But the Turnpike Commission could simply wait: they don’t have to move ahead with buying and razing communities. Tune in to learn more about the situation, and to learn about the growing list of elected officials and organizations supporting the moratorium.

Get more information on our Web site, in PennFuture Facts, and on the Hands Off Web site. Take action to let your elected officials, Governor Rendell, and the Turnpike Commission know that you support the moratorium. To join our Mon-Fayette Toll Road e-mail list to stay up to sate on this issue, e-mail us at podcast (at) pennfuture (dot) org.