Keith Staso thought the matter of a bridge over the railroad tracks that separate the old National Tube Works site from the rest of McKeesport was settled.

That's why, two years ago, he decided to put a building for his company, Huckestein Mechanical Services, on that site.

In the year since his building opened, he has watched every day as his trucks sit on one side of the tracks or the other, waiting for trains to go by before they can continue the company's work.

Now the issue of where to put the bridge has been raised again.

Jeff Ross, owner of the Foodland on the other side of the tracks at Coursin Street and Lysle Boulevard, doesn't like the site the city has chosen.

The plans for the bridge, known as a fly-over ramp, call for it to be built across Lysle Boulevard from Coursin Street, making it a four-way intersection Currently, Lysle forms the top of a "T" intersection with Coursin the vertical bar. Also part of the intersection is the parking lot at Rite Aid, directly across the street from Coursin.

To build the bridge over the tracks, the state would have to take some of the parking from Rite Aid and its neighbor, Eat'n Park. Mr. Ross said he didn't want to see those businesses so damaged that they would close.

He said a better place to put the ramp would be at Center Street, where there already is a railroad crossing, or to build ramps from the industrial site to the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge.

Mr. Ross started a petition against building the fly-over ramp through the Eat'n Park and Rite Aid parking lots. In two weeks in late May and early June, he said 2,000 people signed the petition, without it leaving his store.

Mr. Ross' objections appear to have come too late.

McKeesport council is holding a special meeting tonight to vote on some of the legal matters regarding the city's agreements with PennDOT about the fly-over ramp, city Administrator Dennis Pittman said.

"It's going to upset a lot of people," Mr. Ross said of the construction of the bridge. "A lot of people were unaware this was going on."

Bethany Budd Bauer, McKeesport's community development administrator, said the other options had been studied and the bridge at the bottom of Coursin Street was the best option. Ms. Bauer said the ramp had been estimated to cost $8 million if placed at the bottom of Coursin Street, but if it were built to the McKeesport-Duquesne Bridge, the cost would rise to $15 million to $20 million.

Ms. Bauer said the bridge had been a long-standing commitment to the businesses that have moved to the former National Tube Works property.

"It affects the further development of the site," she said.

Bob Stephenson, president of the Regional Industrial Development Corp., which owns and is developing the site, said the fly-over ramp had been in the works for more than 10 years and was crucial to the site.

"The access over ramp was designed by PennDOT, not us," he said. "It's extremely important so we can get businesses in there and help revitalize McKeesport and increase the tax base."

He said the businesses already there were suffering, while their employees were stuck waiting for trains to pass.

Mr. Staso said one day, in his frustration over watching his trucks wait for passing trains, he calculated the amount of time and, thus, the amount of money his company was losing.

"It's easily $1,500 a day," which translates to $390,000 a year in lost time, he said.

He said the average salary of the 90 people who work at Huckestein Mechanical Services, which installs plumbing, heating and air conditioning in commercial buildings, is $60,000 a year. Those are the types of jobs, Mr. Staso said, the city should want to keep.

"I never would have moved my company to McKeesport if I thought that fly-over wasn't going to be there," he said. "This has to happen and it needs to happen fast."

Engineering has been done on the construction of the bridge, but the work to build it has not been put out for bids. Mr. Pittman said he expected those bids to be opened in October and the construction to take nine months to a year.