-LETTERS-
Dear Editor,
Back in the old days when I was a kid, we rode our two-wheel bikes over local roads with little auto traffic. Aiken Road went from McKees Rocks Road along the border of Robinson and Kennedy up a steep hill and came out on Beaver Grade Road near what is now the Holy Trinity church and school complex.
From Moon Run Hollow, a creek flowed north to the Ohio River in Groveton, forming a long valley in which the Moon Run-Pittsburgh Coal Company built a railroad line to haul coal to the city. The Moon Run Mine closed in 1937 when it became impractical to dig in shallow veins of coal.
We knew Aiken Road as the identifying line between Robinson on the left and Kennedy on the right until the point where Moon Run Creek passes through a tunnel under Aiken Road, at which point the creek becomes the marker of the boundary lines.
The areas of natural water flowing from rainstorms and snowmelt up until the tunnel were 90% from Robinson and thenceforth it was 50-50 from the hilly terrain on both sides of the long Moon Run Creek Valley.
I believe it would behoove all three government entities – PennDOT, Robinson and Kennedy – to clarify whose people get the most benefit from these roadways and who pays what share of the cost to repair or rebuild this connector road.
PennDOT created the traffic flow on Aiken Road based on previous traffic moving from where the McKees Rocks Road begins at Steubenville Pike through to the town of McKees Rocks. Now, this detour over a substandard local road not built for heavy traffic has created a problem for local officials. This is not fair at all and PennDOT should carry the burden to solve the problem.
During the construction of I-79, a bridge for Forest Grove Road was built over the interstate, but McKees Rocks Road did not have the same kind of traffic study, so now the communities are hurting, with confused drivers using maps showing an open road to McKees Rocks.
J. Thomas Ukranker,
Pittsburgh
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