Gov. Ed Rendell's transportation think tank, an appointed nine-member panel with strong credentials and a fancy title, is coming to the 'Burgh.

The name, the Pennsylvania Transportation Funding and Reform Commission, suggests part of its purpose is to justify a tax increase.

The commission will hold the first of four public meetings at 9:30 a.m. Thursday on the 31st floor of the Regional Enterprise Tower, the former Alcoa Building, Downtown. The other three meetings will be held elsewhere in the state.

After the November general election and after incumbent state officials learn if they'll still be able to luxuriate at public expense, the commission will outline what ails our roads, bridges and public transit systems. Nice timing!

Its report also will recommend fixes, which will be neither cheap nor without sacrifice. No matter how worthy, the reforms almost certainly will be influenced by lobbyists, muddled in politics and rejected or watered down by lawmakers.

Meanwhile, people are as apathetic as ever. They'd rather act shocked when the gas tax goes up or bus fares are increased. It gives them an excuse to scream, yell and threaten to throw the bums out. Too late!

Fewer than two dozen people are being permitted to testify. They represent a range from wealthy highway interests who have greased political palms to low-income transit riders who dirty their hands working. Others are being asked to submit written comments.

Everyone will claim to have the public interest at heart. Everyone will argue that his/her cause is more important than the others.

The commission will hear them out, then go about its bureaucratic business. The state is paying $770,000 to a local consulting-engineering firm, Michael Baker Jr. Inc., to tend to the details and do the legwork.

I'd like to be surprised, but the final report will reach conclusions and recommendations we've heard before: Raise the gas tax. Cut waste. Control labor. Privatize.

Afterward, Mr. Rendell, state legislators and/or politicians-elect will slug it out in Harrisburg.

By then, the public transit systems in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, No. 5 and No. 15 nationally, will be in crisis mode, facing unprecedented deficits after having their operating budgets artificially buoyed by federal highway funds for two years and after being saddled with costly new labor contracts and old work rules.

By then, more than 5,600 aging, structurally deficient and obsolete state-owned bridges will be another year older and more expensive to fix or replace.

By then, the 40,500-mile network of state-owned roads will be held up to ridicule yet again by interstate truckers and out-of-state visitors, while frustrated resident drivers and the state economy pay the price for decades of policies and decisions rooted in politics instead of sound engineering judgment.

Mr. Know-it-all challenges the commission to bring something new to the table. Something radical. Something to wake up constituents. Something provocative, such as:

Impose nominal, one-way tolling on interstates 90, 80 and 70 at the Pennsylvania border. Although the three interstates make up 1 percent of the state highway system, the enormous cost to repair, rebuild and maintain them comes at the expense of the other 99 percent of our roads.

We entice traffic away from the self-supporting Pennsylvania Turnpike by giving interstate users a free ride on the other three east-west routes.

Charge municipalities for state police protection. About $300 million a year, or two-thirds of the state police budget, comes from the Motor License Fund, equivalent to 5 cents of the 32-cents-a-gallon state gas tax. Money supporting state police was intended to benefit everyone equally, not to be siphoned off for cheapos without their own police or who refuse to buy public safety service from a neighbor.

How about Pittsburgh dissolving its police force and turning law enforcement over to state police to solve its budget crisis? Is the city any different from Hempfield? Bentleyville? Union Township?

Don't discriminate. Put vehicles in weight classes where they belong. The owner of a 15-seat van or a Hummer H2 SUV with a gross vehicle weight of 8,800 pounds pays the same $36 fee as the owner of a 2,700-pound Mini Cooper.

Anybody who can afford a Hummer can afford to pay $153, the same as the owner of a pickup truck between 7,001 and 9,000 pounds GVW.

Quit paving parking lanes. That is, when PennDOT paves state-owned roads in built-up areas, it paves curb lanes where municipalities have established metered or free parking. The practice adds up to hundreds of lane miles a year, a poor use of highway funds, if not a misuse.

Examples: PennDOT paves the outbound curb lane of Second Avenue through Hazelwood and then the city allows people to use it 24/7 for parking and abandoned vehicles. Fallowfield Avenue in Charleroi, Washington Road in Mt. Lebanon and East Carson Street on the South Side are paved with state gas-tax dollars, but PennDOT does not share in parking meter receipts.

Provide a "whistle-blower" reporting center so the Motor Vehicle Code is applied and enforced evenly. People live here but register their vehicles out of state in order to avoid inspection and insurance requirements. Most are traffic scofflaws, costing fellow Pennsylvanians millions of dollars in revenue and damage claims.

Ever wonder why the guy down the street drives a vehicle with an out-of-state plate?

Ka-ching! Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

That's $150 million or so of extra money for PennDOT.

That's just a start.

Contractor guarantees. Thicker pavements, not "election specials." Elimination of unnecessary bridges. Smarter growth and land-use policies. Transportation investments tied to economic development. Modern traffic signals. Local transportation tax options. Standardized designs.

I didn't sign up to testify.

The Transportation Funding and Reform Commission doesn't have all day.

Elsewhere. San Diego is doing what Pittsburgh ain't, in the Strip District or in the South Side. The city has formed a nonprofit entity to restore two 1940s streetcars and operate them on a downtown loop.

Believe it! The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority recently received delivery of its 325th hybrid diesel-electric transit bus. Another 500 are on order. The Allegheny County Port Authority operates six hybrid buses.

Plate du jour. Sue Steis, of Kittanning, often sees the Pennsylvania personalized license plate GR8TCU on a vehicle parked on Route 219 in Elk County when she visits her parents there.