Two state lawmakers have called for government to quit wasting taxpayer money on a pie-in-the-sky, high-speed maglev system that their constituents don't want and is not likely to ever be built here, if anywhere.

State Reps. Mark Mustio, R-Moon, and Nick Kotik, D-Robinson, issued a statement saying the "time has come" to focus on other transit and economic development matters and end subsidies to the Maglev Inc. bigwigs taking home fat paychecks since 1991.

		Construction around the region Getting Around Guide: 7/09/06

The estimated cost of building the Pittsburgh International Airport-to-Greensburg line jumped to $4.6 billion the last time I checked and $1.8 billion for just the first leg from the airport to Downtown, a 15-mile experiment with magnetically levitated trains racing over an elevated guideway at speeds up to 240 mph.

State taxpayers alone would have to ante up $500 million for "The Pennsylvania Project." For-profit Maglev Inc. has already gotten almost $20 million of your money for planning, mostly from federal sources but some from PennDOT.

The lawmakers said the community should no longer be put "through the emotional or financial uncertainty of a project that has little chance of coming to fruition anytime in the future."

A decision about whether $950 million in federal "demonstration money" would be approved for either the Pittsburgh proposal or a Baltimore-to-Washington, D.C., high-speed maglev line was to have been made before President Bill Clinton left office.

Since a supposedly professional, unbiased elimination process narrowed the candidates to two, Atlanta-Chattanooga, Tenn., and Las Vegas-Anaheim, Calif., proposals have become part of the pork race, thanks to politics.

Given the federal government's red ink and President George Bush's attitude toward public transportation, don't hold your breath.

The "other" maglev project going nowhere fast but lining consultants' and sponsors' pockets is low-speed maglev, also the beneficiary of millions in mostly federal funds.

For-profit, Pittsburgh-based U.S. Maglev Development Corp. abandoned a proposal to build a 2,200-foot line connecting a 5,000-car parking garage at Mellon Arena with the Port Authority's Steel Plaza light-rail station.

We were supposed to ride that "sky shuttle" by 2002.

Had the folly succeeded, Pittsburgh also would have had one of the world's biggest parking garages, with no adequate roads to get to and from it.

A lack of support prompted U.S. Maglev Development Corp. to pull up stakes in the city and move to the country. It sold the low-speed maglev concept to California University of Pennsylvania and U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, its new benefactor and supporter.

Low-speed maglev was supposed to be in operation on campus by last July. Guess what?

If Mustio and Kotik introduce a bill to quit spending money on high-speed maglev, they should include low-speed maglev.

Then we can watch the Legislature move at snail-speed.

City of Bridges. Maybe Pittsburgh needs a unique bridge over the Allegheny River instead of twin tunnels beneath it to extend the light-rail system to the North Shore. I'm talking about a "water bridge."

W.J. Englert, of New Kensington, Dick Kraft, of Bethel Park, and John Asmonga, of the Homestead-West Mifflin Historical Society, have all called attention to such a bridge via e-mails.

It's an elevated waterway, essentially a concrete bathtub not unlike the Parkway East along the Mon Wharf when it floods, except it sits in the air.

The water bridge crossing above the Elbe River provides safe, short, reliable passage for river barges as well as pleasure craft between major canals near Berlin.

"How about this for a transportation solution?" Mr. Asmonga remarked of the 0.6-mile-long span, an engineering feat that took $500 million and six years to build.

Elsewhere. The Federal Transit Administration has signed a full-funding agreement for $489 million toward the $581 million cost of establishing a 44-mile commuter rail line in the Salt Lake City, Utah, area.

Believe it. Reserved parking spots in North Side lots around PNC Park have been sold for $75 to $150 for Tuesday's All-Star Game. Fifty percent of the money is supposed to go to Pittsburgh, home of the highest parking tax in the United States.

Plate du jour. Ed Hussar, of Fayette City, spotted the Pennsylvania personalized license plate LETS ROL on a van traveling on I-70. "I'm thinking it's a tribute to the brave people aboard Flight 93," he said.