The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission plans to use money from a multibillion-dollar state transportation funding bill to help pay for a $659 million segment of the Southern Beltway along the Washington-Allegheny County line.

Its intent is laid out in a proposed amendment to a Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission program that the federal government requires to establish transportation spending priorities. The commission says Act 44, which authorizes turnpike toll increases and tolling Interstate 80 to raise record revenues for roads, bridges and transit, does not prohibit using the money to finance toll road expansion projects.

As a result, the turnpike plans to sell bonds to raise $578 million toward the estimated $659 million cost of final design, right-of-way acquisition and building the 13.3-mile Southern Beltway segment from Interstate 79 north of Canonsburg to Route 22 in Robinson. There, it is to hook up with the already completed Findlay Connector leading to Pittsburgh International Airport.

The bonding would require the turnpike to repay up to $50 million a year out of Act 44 proceeds for principal and interest for 30 years, or as much as $1.5 billion.

"I'm sure many of my colleagues will be surprised by this and say it's unfair," said state Rep. Mike Turzai, R-Bradford Woods, co-chair of the House Republican Policy Committee. "I don't remember from any discussion that Act 44 money would be going for that particular project."

Mr. Turzai was among lawmakers who voted against Act 44, which passed the House by a 124-79 vote and the Senate by a 30-19 vote; it was signed into law by Gov. Ed Rendell in July.

The bill anticipates generating $116 billion over the next 50 years, and authorizes borrowing up to $13 billion in the interim. It is now becoming clear that not all of the money will be turned over to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation as part of the so-called "public-public" partnership with the turnpike.

"I thought it was a bad scheme from the moment they sprung it," Mr. Turzai said of the Democrat-sponsored bill. The provision to toll I-80 to provide about half of the new revenue must be approved by the Federal Highway Administration and has spawned considerable opposition along the 311-mile corridor through Central Pennsylvania.

Mr. Turzai suggested the fact that money can be directed toward completing the 110-mile network of the Mon-Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway will further fuel the controversy.

The Turnpike Commission has been receiving 14 percent of a 55-mill increase in the state's oil company franchise tax since 1991 and a flat $28 million a year from vehicle registration fee increases since 1997 to float $1.9 billion in bonds and build the 56 miles of expressway and beltway currently open to traffic.

Officials estimate the remaining 54 miles will cost $5 billion, including a 24-mile, Y-shaped section from Route 51 in Jefferson Hills to Monroeville and Pittsburgh, a section currently under design.

As recently as April, turnpike officials warned that money had become a problem. David Zazworsky, an engineer who oversees the expansion program on behalf of the five-member Turnpike Commission, said at a meeting: "This is the first time we've had to say there's no funding to proceed further with segments of the project."

Act 44 seems to have changed that.

To qualify for a federal "Record of Decision" allowing the turnpike to advance the I-79-to-Findlay Connector project to construction, turnpike officials have to demonstrate they have lined up the financial resources to build what they've been planning for more than a decade.

Until Act 44 came along, they were unable to do so, Turnpike Chief Engineer Frank Kempf acknowledged.

"We had to wait for the Legislature to give us the money," he said last week. "Act 44 gives us the means [and] now we have a financial plan to get us on the Transportation Improvement Program."

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission has made the turnpike's proposed financial plan for the Southern Beltway available for review and comment. Public meetings are to be held 4 to 7 p.m. Jan. 9 at the Carnegie Municipal Building and the same hours Jan. 10 at California University of Pennsylvania's Morgan Hall Auditorium.

The SPC membership, which includes county commissioners, state officials and planning executives, will vote on the plan Jan. 22, as well as another turnpike proposal to fund the final 8.5 miles of the Uniontown-Brownsville segment of the Mon-Fayette Expressway. The latter calls for $5 million in federal funds, $210 million from the existing bond fund and $240 million in additional bonding from higher state gas tax revenues, but no Act 44 funds.

The plan for using Act 44 funds for the next section of the Southern Beltway notes the money will not come from tolling I-80 but "is strictly limited to raising toll revenue that is entirely under direct control of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission."

Turnpike tolls are to be increased by a record 25 percent in 2009, and 3 percent a year thereafter, a move that will make it the most expensive toll road in the United States for long-distance travel.

In a letter to the SPC relative to the Southern Beltway, Mr. Kempf wrote:

"The PTC has both the statutory authority and financial capacity to fund all phases of the U.S. 22 to I-79 Southern Beltway project, at the appropriate time, and will include this amount in calculating the adjustments to the revenues required to meet the PTC obligations under Act 44."

The turnpike's timetable calls for beginning to acquire properties about a year from now in the toll road corridor that passes mainly thorugh Cecil, South Fayette and Robinson townships. Construction would get under way in 2010 and take at least four years.

Proponents see one of the main benefits of the latest segment of Southern Beltway as easing traffic pressure on some of the busiest parts of I-79 and the Parkway West, thereby reducing the need for PennDOT to add highway capacity. A significant volume of northbound traffic could use the beltway as a shortcut to the airport, shopping malls and job centers in the West Hills, or to continue west on Routes 22, 30 and 60.

Information about the turnpike's request to amend the region's 2007-2010 TIP and the 2035 Transportation and Development Plan is available at the SPC's Web site at www.spcregion.org. Go to "Proposed TIP & LRP Amendments."