Butler County officials seek funding to complete Route 228 expansion
Butler County and Pennsylvania officials have spent the last eight years, and tens of millions of dollars, expanding Route 228, a key east-west traffic corridor that spans the southern part of the county.
With most of the components of the project either complete or nearing completion, four Butler County officials traveled to Washington, D.C., recently to meet with a group of Pennsylvania lawmakers to discuss the possibility of federal funding for the last — and most expensive — piece of what is officially dubbed “Gateway 228.”
The section itself is 3.1 miles long and runs from approximately the intersection with Pittsburgh Street in Adams Township to the intersection with Franklin Street.
“They’ve got to offset and move some businesses, so that’s why it's one of the most expensive pieces,” said county Commissioner Kevin Boozel.
The officials who made the trek to the nation’s capital in March were county Commissioners Kevin Boozel, Kim Geyer and Leslie Osche, and planning commission chairman Mark Gordon. While there, they met with U.S. Sens. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., along with U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th.
“The meeting was productive and informative, and it provided great insight into the next steps for the project,” said Matthew Knoedler, a spokesperson for Kelly.
“Our visit was to update our elected officials and to update the Federal Highway Administration and Department of Transportation and let them know what our remaining uncompleted section looks like in anticipated costs,” said Gordon.
“We went there to ask for support for our grant, and we got the affirmative from everyone,” Boozel said. “We’re hopeful that they’ll work on our behalf to help us get that grant.”
Kelly, in particular, has championed the Gateway 228 project at public events, including one held at a PennDOT field office in Adams Township last August.
“The transformation of Route 228 so far has been incredible to watch,” Knoedler said. “The Gateway 228 project is a great step toward improving safety, accessibility and efficiency along one of the most critical and heavily traveled highways in our region. This is an incredible return on taxpayer investment. We are seeing the transformation in real-time.”
The road was mentioned also at a Friday event where PennDOT touted its road improvement projects. PennDOT discussed plans for an improvement project along Franklin Road in Cranberry Township that spans from its intersection of Route 228 North to Peters Road at a cost of $19.2 million.
According to Geyer, the estimated cost of the Mars Railroad portion — the just over 3 mile stretch running from Pittsburgh Street to the intersection with Franklin Street — costs $101.65 million, and the county is asking for just short of $61 million in federal grant funding.
“We have some other monies accounted for,” Geyer said. “Locally, we’d have to raise $10 million, and then we have $20 million that comes in from another, different bucket of federal funding. So it’s an 80-20 share. 80% is federal, 20% is nonfederal.”
While it hasn’t been determined where the $10 million local share of the funding would come from, Geyer says that the project has previously raised money through the Butler County Infrastructure Bank, a reduced interest rate loan program, which assists in the completion of transportation-related infrastructure projects.
“What we did before was, we used the county’s infrastructure bank program to help us piece that together,” Geyer said.
The Mars Railroad portion is still in the preliminary engineering and design stages, according to Geyer, with no actual construction having started yet.
“We have the preliminary engineering completed,” Geyer said. “The final design is underway, and it will have a 2026 completion. The right of way (acquisition) of that corridor is underway, and it has a 2026 completion.
“And if we get the money, that construction would begin in 2027, and it would end in 2031.”
One key outstanding hurdle is that, according to Gordon, the federal program that could possibly aid in finishing the Route 228 expansion hasn’t actually been established yet.
“The current funding program has not been defined yet,” Gordon said. “Our question for them was, ‘Do you believe you’re going to have a funding initiative announced going forward and would you see us having eligibility to apply?’ And they said ‘yes.’”
Early in the project, during the first Trump administration, the Gateway 228 stakeholders were able to secure $45 million in funding through two grants from the BUILD, Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development, program. The project received a $20 million grant in 2018, and a $25 million grant in 2020.
“We got no award under the Biden administration,” Gordon said.
“The U.S. DOT did tell us they foresaw returning to the BUILD name,” Geyer said. “I think it'll be called the BUILD grant, but it’ll be given a different name.”
Gordon says the county has completed, or is on course to complete, its construction obligations under the two BUILD grants ahead of schedule and under budget.
“BUILD 1 has been completed in its entirety. It came in 3% under budget and six months ahead of schedule,” Gordon said. “BUILD 2 is on schedule and on budget, and should be completed in the fall of 2026.”
“We have assured the government that once we get the money, this project will be shovel ready, just like with our other two grants,” Geyer said.
Another part of Gateway 228, the Balls Bend Safety Improvement Project, was finished in January 2025 at a cost of $26.55 million.
Geyer said she believes that the stars have aligned to ensure that Butler County will secure the necessary federal funding to complete the Gateway 228 project, which she says has been on the drawing board for decades.
“We’re going to work really hard together as commissioners to get this funding for this last piece,” Geyer said. “If we don’t do it with the team that we have in place here in Butler County, as well as in Washington, D.C., representing Pennsylvania and Butler County, it will never happen.
“The effort it takes to put all the pieces together … it will never be replicated again.”
