MALONE — The final draft of the Northern Tier Expressway plan will be discussed at two public meetings this week, where gains and losses in area communities will be outlined.

The four-lane expressway, known for decades as the "Rooftop Highway," is a proposal by the State Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.

The 175-mile highway would start on U.S. Route 11 at the entrance to the U.S. Army installation at Fort Drum and reach to Rouses Point.

Calculated using 2005 dollars, the overall cost for the expressway was estimated between $785 million and $820 million.

In today's pricing, the 20-year project would cost more like $1 billion.

Public meetings on the final draft of the Northern Tier Expressway Route 11 Corridor Study will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the conference room at the Franklin County Courthouse in Malone and at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Clinton County Emergency Services Center in Plattsburgh.

LONGTIME DREAM
The idea of a rooftop highway has been bandied about for four decades.

A bill was passed in the State Legislature giving permission to build such a project, but it was vetoed by then Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who said it would be too costly.

The idea was revised later in hopes it could be included in federal transportation plans as an interstate project, but that was also rejected.

However, support for the concept would not die, and through the next 30 years, the kernel of a plan continued to gain backing.

STUDY COMMISSIONED
The most-recent push forward came in 2002 when the Development Authority of the North Country commissioned the original North Country Traffic Study that concluded an expressway was advisable in the region because of the positive economic benefit it would bring.

After a series of meetings to obtain local input, the draft recommendations are ready for another round of scrutiny from the public, said Development Authority Executive Director Bob Jurovich.

Detailed in the final draft are smaller, "bite-sized pieces that could ultimately lead in the direction of a Northern Tier Expressway," he said.

BYPASS COMMUNITIES
If built, the Northern Tier Expressway would bypass the villages of Malone and Rouses Point, as well as Gouverneur, Canton and Potsdam, recognizing that "in many cases, the communities would cease to exist."

But, DOT officials say, it could be decades before such drastic steps take place, if at all.

Although he has not seen the final draft, Rouses Point Mayor George Rivers has long backed a bypass for the community.

"When they had public hearings years ago, I told them they should bypass downtown to keep the truck traffic out of the village.

"I also told them they should have a second bypass in Rouses Point to connect with Interstate 89 in Vermont. That way, the highway would connect I-81 in Watertown to the Northway at Champlain and I-89 into Vermont."

Three major projects would be pursued in the first part of project development, "and two of them are in Franklin County," County Manager James Feeley said.

But he won't give details until the project consultants, Wilbur Smith Associates, release the information.

FOUR LANES
The expressway, if built, would have four 12-foot-wide traffic lanes with two four-foot inside shoulders and two eight-foot outside shoulders.

It will have a 40-foot grassy median and up to 36 feet on both outer edges for drainage and utilities.

Users would travel between 60 and 70 mph.

To accommodate existing natural and human-made elements, the center median would be reduced to allow the highway through those points, then widened again.

Also, the path for the Military Turnpike spur from the City of Plattsburgh to Ellenburg would ensure the boundaries of the American Indian reservation at Ganienkeh near Altona and certain environmental conditions along the highway are not disturbed.

E-mail Denise A. Raymo at: draymo@pressrepublican.com