About once a day, Greensburg police flag down an 18-wheeler making an illegal, traffic-blocking turn on Main Street in the heart of town.

Sixty-five miles of toll roads have opened in Western Pennsylvania since 1990, costing more than $1.4 billion. While traffic has been slowly increasing on the Beaver Valley Expressway, the Greensburg Bypass and the Mon-Fayette Expressway, they carry about 10,000 fewer cars and trucks a day, combined, than Pittsburgh's Fort Pitt Bridge does in one direction. The roads also are not generating the new jobs foreseen by supporters. Yet the Turnpike Commission is planning and building 70 more miles in the region, one of the largest active highway construction programs in the United States, at a cost estimated to exceed $3.5 billion. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette provides an update in "Tales of Three Toll Roads, Part Two." Related stories Laurel Valley Expressway plans scaled back Part One: Expected economic boon hasn't arrived along Beaver Valley Expressway

"I don't know why trucks still go this way," said police Capt. George Seranko, an 18-year veteran who was on the force in December 1993, when the Pennsylvania Turnpike opened Toll 66 as the 13.2-mile, north-south alternative to driving through the busy Westmoreland County seat.

Main Street also serves as combined Business Route 66, Route 819, Route 130 and part of Route 119, running past the door of the gold-domed county courthouse.

It's the slow, old-fashioned way to go from Route 22 north of Greensburg, south to Route 30, Interstate 70 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike's east-west mainline, or vice versa.

Toll 66, also known as the Greensburg bypass, is the 65 mph, modern-day way to avoid the hills, curves and up to two dozen traffic lights on the other routes.

A continuing look by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has determined that of the three toll road expansion projects opened in Western Pennsylvania since 1992, the Greensburg bypass may be the one best meeting expectations.

And although some truck rigs continue to rumble through the city, officials say they're more of a nuisance than the big problem they were or could have been without Toll 66.

"If we didn't have the Greensburg bypass, the central part of the county would be a constant traffic jam by now and Greensburg would be traffic chaos," said Larry Larese, longtime director of the county's planning department.

Police figure that long-haul and independent truckers who still go through the city are lost, confused, have out-of-date directions or want to avoid the toll, which can be $5.50 for the average 40-ton rig using the Greensburg bypass.

"Signs are posted on 22 telling them they're not allowed to come down Route 119 or 819, but they do it anyhow," Seranko said. "Drivers say they were given bad directions. Some are hauling hazardous materials or fuel. We haven't had a disaster and we don't want one."

Trucks, and the fact they were creating a rapidly growing threat to traffic and safety as businesses expanded in central Westmoreland County, provided the reason to build the bypass.

Of about 604,558 vehicles traveling the bypass in March, turnpike records show 15 percent were commercial vehicles, ranging from van-type delivery trucks to 18-wheelers and tri-axle dumps known as "coal trucks."

Of all the vehicles that used the bypass that month, more than 25,600 were classified as big trucks, or those with gross vehicle weights between 15 tons and 50 tons.

Records also show commercial vehicles paid $199,855 of $658,855 in total tolls for the same month, another indication of how many trucks have gravitated to Toll 66.

Rich Redmerski, director of communications for state Sen. Allen Kukovich, D-Manor, has lived for 30 years in Greensburg's Hillcrest neighborhood, which is a stone's throw from the steepest, narrowest part of Main Street. He has heard his share of squealing tires, jake brakes, backfires and racing engines.

Pam Panchak, Post-Gazette An 18-wheel tractor trailer makes a left-hand turn from Otterman Street onto Main Street in Greensburg. Click photo for larger image.

"Now I can sleep at night," he said.

A SuperValu Inc. food warehouse and distribution center in New Stanton is among the businesses using the Greensburg bypass. About two dozen of its 100 trucks leave the center for deliveries on an average weekday, using the bypass instead of the old route through Greensburg to points north.

"Not having to go through town has been a time-saver and money-saver when you look at our hourly rate for drivers," SuperValu transportation manager Nick Kustra said. "When the [bypass] gets E-ZPass, we can knock off a few more minutes."

Randy Goehring, owner of Burgh Express in New Stanton, an 18-truck fleet, figures his savings at $15 every time his drivers travel the full length of the Greensburg bypass. "We can be 20 miles down the road while the other guy is still stopping for traffic lights."

One day last month, 38 tractor-trailers, including one oversize rig hauling a bulldozer, were observed traveling up or down Main Street during a one-hour midday period. License plates indicated they came from such distant points as Ontario, Florida and South Carolina.

A Post-Gazette analysis came up with several reasons why trucks may still be running through downtown Greensburg instead of using the bypass.

The back of PennDOT's official state map provides detailed blowups of 18 towns, including New Castle, Hazelton and Johnstown, but not Greensburg, although it is more populous than the other three when surrounding Hempfield Township is counted. As a result, drivers often don't realize there is a better way around town.

While PennDOT imposes some truck restrictions in Greensburg, it nonetheless issues special hauling permits allowing oversize, overweight loads to use Main Street as long as they go straight and make no turns inside the city. It's a money-saver for the big rigs because a special hauling permit for all 13.2 miles of the Greensburg bypass costs $41 and involves separate paperwork.

Neither PennDOT nor turnpike officials have marketed the bypass as the preferred route to and from New Stanton. That marketing void ranges from the absence of informational billboards to not asking trucking firms to update electronic, computer-based routing systems to direct drivers to Toll 66.

Beside removing the majority of slow and noisy truck traffic from downtown Greensburg's hilly streets, officials say, the toll road has met three other goals advertised as part of project planning.

They were to enhance market access for businesses, such as Sony Corp.; improve highway and pedestrian safety; and improve mobility for travelers and shippers in a long-congested area.

Larese points to construction of 1,000 houses a year for the past five years in proximity to the Greensburg bypass and New Stanton, a highway hub six miles south of Greensburg, where the southern end of the bypass makes direct connections to Route 119, I-70 and the turnpike mainline.

As a county, Westmoreland has seen the creation of 27,000 jobs during the past decade, with 106 new companies in its industrial parks.

New Stanton, as the epicenter of that activity, got an economic booster shot in August when the county opened a $10 million intermodal center next to Sony, using a railroad siding and special tracks built for a Chrysler Corp. auto assembly plant that never opened and a Volkswagen plant that closed in 1988.

Materials such as lumber, paper, chemicals and plastics are being shipped to the center and being off-loaded onto trucks for distribution. "We have access to 900 rail cars and three Class 1 freight carriers (CSX, Norfolk Southern and Canadian National railroads), so it's a great opportunity," Larese said. "That's where the Greensburg bypass makes a big difference, by providing north-south connections for the trucks."

Officials said Toll 66 had improved safety and traffic flow through Youngwood and South Greensburg as well as Greensburg by lowering the number of trucks and stemming the growth of other traffic in the Route 119 corridor.

More important, Larese said, the toll road is giving people who live in the northern part of the county an opportunity to find work in the still-developing New Stanton area.

"If it took an hour instead of a half-hour to drive there, people wouldn't go," he said.

Next Sunday: Toll 43, also known as the Mon-Fayette Expressway.