With money so tight right now, perhaps it strikes some as counterproductive to be advocating for more spending. But that’s exactly what is needed when it comes to the Route 228 corridor in southern Butler County.

That’s been the case for years now, but we were reminded of the need when members of the State Transportation Commission met last week in Cranberry, to talk about improvements to Route 228.

Southern Butler County is one of the fastest-growing areas in Butler County. You could rightly call it a vital part of the engine that is currently driving the county’s growth — and thus a cornerstone of the county’s economic future.

Route 228, which is at the center of multiple municipalities’ business districts, plays a vital role in that economic development. It ties directly into Interstate 79 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and connects communities in the county’s southeastern reaches with fast-growing hubs of business and industry, like Cranberry Township’s “Innovation Corridor,” in the county’s southwest.

Butler County Commissioner Kim Geyer, a lifelong Mars area resident, pushed the commission last week to make upgrading Route 228 a higher priority. The road needs to be expanded from two to four (or six) lanes to accommodate growth, Geyer said,

That project, estimated to cost as much as $90 million, is on the commission’s radar but not yet funded or on the schedule.

Geyer is right. It should be funded and added to the commission’s schedule of projects as soon as possible. All of the business, industry and recreational/medical infrastructure in the world don’t mean a thing if it’s not readily (and safely) accessible to workers, customers and companies. And Route 228 carries tens of thousands of their vehicles each day.

The dollars-and-cents argument applies to more than just business. Having roads that are able to adequately handle rush hour every day is important for everyone. Whether you’re a worker on you way home at the end of the day, a resident out running errands, or a student traveling to and from your school, time is money. And people in Western Pennsylvania lose about $1 billion each year to traffic jams, according to a 2013 study by the Washington-based transportation research group TRIP.

That study, which found that commuters were losing thousands of dollars a year to rush-hour traffic, also fingered Route 228 as one of the region’s most problematic and congested areas.

Yes, the state’s purse strings should be tight right now. But there’s a difference between spending money loosely and making thoughtful, if expensive, investments in the future. That’s what improvements to Route 228 represent, and the state shouldn’t waste any time in funding the work.