Community leaders from the Mon Valley met Monday in McKeesport to discuss the future of the Mon-Fayette Expressway and their role in seeing that the troubled toll road is finished.

The event, held in the Palisades in McKeesport, attracted about 40 people from municipalities along the Mon-Fayette corridor. The session offered opportunity for finger pointing -- some in attendance felt the Murphy administration and the City of Pittsburgh had been responsible for killing the momentum of the project in the 1990s -- and debate over whether the turnpike commission should consider finishing the expressway in stages.

The Y-shaped road, which ends at Route 51 in Jefferson Hills, is designed to connect Jefferson Hills with Monroeville and Pittsburgh.

But the discussion kept turning back to one issue as the cause for the unfinished road: a lack of funding from the state.

Frank Kempf, of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, said a shortfall in funds was the reason the commission couldn't purchase the rights-of-way needed to get the job done.

"We've got design firms lined up there working; we could get contractors on board that could be working; we could get started right away anytime, but we don't have the money to do it," he said.

About 35 miles of the road are finished and open for operation from the West Virginia border to southern Allegheny County.

Joe Kirk, of the Mon-Fayette Expressway Association, told the mayors and council members attending that if they thought their communities could benefit from the expressway being completed, it was their job to fight for it.

"What we really have to understand is it isn't the Turnpike Commission's project, it's our project," he said. To keep hopes of the road alive, he said, local leaders need to keep pressure on state and federal leaders for funding.

Munhall Mayor Ray Bodnar said he supported Mr. Kirk's call to action.

"Naturally, money is the main requisite," he said. "Let's get on these guys."

State Rep. Marc Gergely, D-White Oak, offered his support.

"I'm going to take to Harrisburg the idea of forming a Mon-Fayette caucus with the rest of the affected members so we can interface with you directly as this time frame gets nearer and nearer," he said.

He referred to the fact that the turnpike commission has said it will run out of funding for the project to remain active in about two years.

"I strongly believe that every member of these county regions where development has occurred or is about to happen believe in this and we want to work with you to find a way to make it happen," Mr. Gergely added.

Duquesne Council member George Matta said he hoped Mr. Gergely makes good on the promise but wondered why such a coalition hadn't been created sooner.

"This project has been on the map ... for 50 years," he said. "I would certainly think legislators from our community and the senators should have been doing something like this for several years already."

McKeesport Mayor Jim Brewster, who organized the meeting, said the next step will be for local leaders to meet with their respective state and federal officials to determine where they stand on the expressway. The group also hopes to schedule a meeting with Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato.