Paul Bobak was sitting on a love seat in his living room watching an early-morning news program when breaking news occurred a few yards above him.

	Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette Paul Bobak has been waiting six years for the city to fix the aluminum fence near his Arlington Avenue home on Mount Washington. Click photo for larger image.

A speeding white work van failed to negotiate the upper portion of an S-shaped curve on Arlington Avenue, slammed into his 1997 Lincoln Town Car and punched a hole in an aluminum fence that runs above his South Side home and property.

"If he had come all the way through the fence and hit the side of the house, I'm not sure I'd be here to tell you about it," Bobak said last week.

Bobak and his son, Bruce, hurried from their home to see what had happened.

The driver of the van, who had no intention of exchanging insurance information with Bobak, put the van in reverse, backed out of the 6-by-4-foot hole he had punched in the fence and sped up the street toward Warrington Avenue.

Neither son nor father was able to get the license plate number.

"It had ladders on the roof -- a red one over the passenger side and a blue or gray one on the driver's side," Paul Bobak said. "It looked like a construction van."

Meanwhile, Bobak's Lincoln looked a mess.

The car, which weighs 3,997 pounds, was parked along the curb, facing down Arlington. The van hit the left rear side of the car so hard that it knocked the back half of the vehicle up onto the sidewalk. The impact was so great that it broke off the right rear tire from the axle.

It cost Bobak's insurance company more than $11,000 to fix it.

Paul Bobak called Pittsburgh police. An officer came out, surveyed the damage to the car and fence, shook his head in disbelief and interviewed father and son.

"He said he would notify the proper city department about the fence," Bobak said.

That was six years ago -- on May 8, 1999, two days before Paul Bobak's 68th birthday.

"I've called the police and some other city numbers since then, but nothing ever happened," Bobak said. "I figured they got tired of me calling."

Bobak, who has several grandchildren, said he is concerned that someone, especially young children, might fall through the hole and be injured or killed when they land on the concrete surface 10 feet below.

He said the railing, which is more than 100 feet long, offers an unobstructed view of the Downtown area. It is a popular place for children and adults to gather to watch fireworks near Point State Park or PNC Park. But no one should lean against the round railing above the hole. The only thing holding it in place is weathered gray duct tape.

The next fireworks display will be July 4 as part of the Three Rivers Regatta.

The avenue and sidewalk along Bobak's property were parts of a five-year, $19.4 million project of the city and Port Authority that was finished in January 1993.

I called Guy Costa, the city's public works director, and Bob Grove, a spokesman for the Port Authority. I also e-mailed a photo of the hole in the fence to both of them.

"It's ours, and I can't understand why it hasn't been repaired," Costa told me. "It should have been done a long time ago. We'll put up a barricade, order the necessary materials because they are not in stock and repair it as soon as possible."

Costa is scheduled to appear before City Council today to request $265,000 for wall, step and fence projects throughout the city. He has added the hole in the fence to his list.

"That makes me very happy," Bobak said yesterday. "I should have called you years ago."