The Parkway East is Interstate 376.

The Parkway West is Interstate 279.

	Online Graphic See a map that shows a unified Interstate 376.

Take them and Routes 22/30 and then Route 60 to get to Pittsburgh International Airport.

Confused? It's the same road.

Longtime efforts to take the hodge-podge and create a logical, continuous 90-mile interstate with one, easily identifiable name now carries a list of conditions and a $91 million price tag.

The money would be used for signs and physical modifications to bring the road sections up to minimum Federal Highway Administration engineering and safety standards. The recommendations are contained in a consultant's report commissioned by the state and recently accepted by the agency.

"Basically, the report lays out a strategy to implement the conversion to an interstate," said Tony Mento, transportation engineer for FHWA's Pennsylvania Division. "There's no schedule. PennDOT has to agree to the recommendations and then program the work and funding."

The report looked at four categories, the first three of which the FHWA insists must be satisfied to create an I-376 between the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Monroeville at one end, and the turnpike's New Castle interchange at the other end. The interstate would likely continue north to link with I-80 at New Castle.

Category 1 -- Deficiencies that must be brought to current interstate standards including guide-rail and median barriers, sign and lighting placements, and right-of-way fences. Cost: $21.8 million.

Category 2 -- Other deficiencies that require final designs to be completed and have funding in place for construction. Among these are upgrading signs and adding new signs in Beaver and Lawrence counties. Cost: $12.4 million.

Category 3 -- Several other projects, including improvements to the interchange of the Parkway West at Routes 22, 30 and 60 in Robinson. Cost: $57.2 million.

Category 4 consists of design deficiencies that would cost an estimated $83.1 million to correct but which the FHWA would not require, provided PennDOT makes a case for the exceptions.

The estimated $91 million cost of Category 1, 2 and 3 requirements is $2 million less than PennDOT is spending this year and next to rebuild five miles of I-79 between Bridgeville and the Parkway West.

"It's still a considerable amount of money," PennDOT District 11 Traffic Engineer Todd Kravits said, explaining how the 10-county Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission would have to program the funding at a time so many other highway and bridge projects are competing for approval. "They'd have to make this a priority."

The SPC has a group including representatives from outside SPC jurisdiction pursuing the I-376 initiative.

"The next step is to justify the Category 4 deficiencies ... why they can't or shouldn't be built," Kravits said.

The FHWA report acknowledges the benefits: ease of motorist recognition, consistency in route designation, increasing the stature of the airport outside of the region, and unnamed local benefits that, while not noted, must mean giving directions to strangers.

Pittsburgh International Airport is one of few big airports in the United States not served by an interstate highway, a matter that puts it at a marketing disadvantage, officials have complained.

Local elected and planning officials first approached the FHWA about the interstate naming concept more than a decade ago.

On Oct. 5, 1994, representatives of the federal agency toured the corridor with staff personnel from PennDOT and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, finding the I-376 designation to have merit.

"A lot of details still have to be worked out," Kravits. "Someone needs to keep pushing the idea."

The FHWA report acknowledges the benefits of a unified Interstate 376: ease of motorist recognition, consistency in route designation, increasing the stature of the airport outside of the region, and unnamed local benefits that, while not noted, must mean giving directions to strangers.