New union contract provisions, also applicable to management, imposed a Feb. 1 deadline for Port Authority employees to retire and avoid paying 1 percent of their pensions toward health-care premiums.

That's primarily why 40 of them, an unusually high number, beat the clock and called it quits in January. Ergo, they're entitled to the same free insurance as nearly 3,000 other authority pensioners.

They were eligible to retire after 25 years of service regardless of age, an option many have chosen over the years to retire in their 40s and 50s. Some applied military service toward early retirement.

Now, anybody hired after Dec. 1, 2005, must be at least 55 years old and meet the 25-year service requirement to qualify for a full pension.

And, like everyone else still on the payroll, they'll have to pay a share of insurance, albeit a nominal 1 percent of their base wage.

Not the people who work for the authority, of course, but many feel the retirement program is still too liberal, too costly and out of sync with the private sector. The benefits are one reason the transit agency has dug itself into a deep financial hole.

Then you look at the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and are glad you don't live in Boston. Labor agreements with 29 of its 30 unions expire June 30. (The Port Authority deals with five unionized groups.)

According to The Boston Globe, one-third of MBTA's 6,200 employees are eligible to retire over the next five years and receive free health care for life.

MBTA workers can retire with 23 years of service with pensions paying them 57 percent of their average salary during their three highest-earning years. Average salaries in 2004 were $54,981 for bus drivers and $57,608 for trolley operators. (The average wage of Port Authority union employees in 2003 was $47,304.)

Although the MBTA plans to raise fares in January for the second time in two years, the Boston bean counters charge only a 90-cent base fare for bus rides and $1.25 for trolley or train rides.

Is it any wonder that its debt is $8.1 billion, the highest of any transit agency in the U.S.?

Buckle up

The McKees Rocks Bridge already did. Two readers complained separately within a week about a buckled sidewalk near the middle of the Ohio River span.

"Why only this section?" Joseph Bayer, of McKees Rocks, asked in a letter. "Is the roadway next?"

An e-mailer said the piece of sidewalk was "standing straight up, at attention. If somebody breaks down at night and steps onto that piece of sidewalk, 'Goodbye!' Down the river they go."

The buckling forced the closing of that sidewalk; the only sidewalk open is on the other side of the bridge. PennDOT repaired the latter sidewalk last summer.

After looking into the situation, PennDOT District 11 Executive Dan Cessna said: "The concrete-filled [sidewalk] grid panels are curled and heaved across the bridge. These need to be completely removed and replaced across the entire bridge."

Extensive repairs are planned for 2008 or 2009. Meanwhile, Mr. Cessna said PennDOT would investigate ways to improve safety, "to protect someone from stepping over the barrier and falling through."

Support the governor

The American Trucking Associations, the nation's largest trucking trade group, has endorsed a move to limit the maximum speed of large trucks at the time of manufacture to no more than 68 mph.

The industry would use what's called a governor, which would not allow a driver to accelerate beyond the limit, even with the pedal to the metal.

An ATA news release said it wanted to reduce the number and severity of speed-related crashes as a safety initiative. A membership study said nearly 75 percent of trucks have speed governors and that most were set at 70 mph or lower.

"There has been a growing sense within the trucking industry for the need to slow down the large truck population as well as all traffic," ATA President-CEO Bill Graves said. "With speeding as a factor in one-third of all fatal highway crashes, it makes all the sense in the world to reduce this number."

Although more trucks are in use, and although some drivers will always be hot dogs, safety has improved.

The fatal crash rate for big rigs fell to 1.96 fatal crashes per 100 million vehicle-miles traveled in 2004, the lowest rate since the U.S. Transportation Department began tracking large-truck safety records in 1975.

Potpourri

Port Authority bus driver Tom Cocchi earned $64,000 in cash and prizes on the game show "Wheel of Fortune." The eight-year employee works out of the Collier Division bus garage.

Two colleagues at the garage were seriously injured in motorcycle accidents 13 months apart. Although Joey Dadum, 41, of McDonald, lost his left leg below the knee, he was back on the job eight months later. The former Marine drives a 41E Mount Washington bus. Tracy Baselj, of South Fayette, broke her pelvis, sternum, ribs, nose and shoulder and severely injured a leg when a bird flew into the side of her face and caused her to crash. She returned to work in nine months.

PennDOT Secretary Allen Biehler has named a successor to No. 2, Deputy Secretary for Highway Administration Gary Hoffman, who is retiring. The appointee is Richard H. Hogg, a 24-year career veteran who has been District 10 executive overseeing PennDOT activities in Butler, Clarion, Indiana, Armstrong and Indiana counties.

Elsewhere

The York public transit system will begin using biodiesel fuel in some of its transit vehicles, a blend of conventional diesel fuel and fuel made from soybeans grown in Central Pennsylvania.

Believe it!

Americans are traveling about 2.9 trillion miles a year on U.S. roads in more than 200 million registered motor vehicles. That's 2,900,000,000,000 on the odometer.

Plate du jour

Joe Mielnicki, of Green Tree, spotted the Pennsylvania personalized license plate LZRBEAM on a Chevrolet Cobalt flashing down Saw Mill Run Boulevard.