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Grata's Guide: Turnpike flush with pride over new, waterless urinals
Sunday, September 26, 1999 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Today's column focuses on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, our beloved state-related, politically motivated toll road agency.
The first part of our report is for men only, but it has nothing to do with photos of nude employees that showed up on the turnpike's internal computer system this summer.
It's still gutter talk. It's about men's urinals.
Successors to the generation of foresighted engineers who built the nation's first modern toll road are launching what could become a trend in traveler services: Urinals that use water for flushing are being replaced by models that dispense a couple of drops of chemical fluid.
Building upon a successful eight-month experiment conducted in the ground-level men's restroom of the turnpike's headquarters near Harrisburg, the high-tech urinals will now be installed in all men's restrooms in the building as part of a $32 million expansion and renovation project that got under way last week.
Someday, the turnpike brass may order them installed in the men's rooms of all 22 service plazas, and you'll have a chance to go, 21st-century style.
Don Santostefano, manager of turnpike facilities, said the small amount of the chemical fluid used in waterless urinals "floats like oil on water," masking odors.
He said the fluid keeps the urinal bowls cleaner than conventional flushing. The fluid is biodegradable and approved by state and federal environmental agencies.
Best of all, Santostefano said, the turnpike can save 45,000 gallons of water per urinal per year in the drought-stricken Harrisburg area.
Women still will have to go the old-fashioned way, because no changes are planned for fixtures in their facilities.
This really isn't silly business when you consider more than 160 million vehicles a year travel the turnpike system.
Let's say the vehicles carry 250 million people, half of whom are men and boys. That's a lot of water not over the dam.
Some service plazas are located in rural areas where municipal water and sewage facilities are not plentiful or even available. Increasing traffic and busier restaurants are forcing the turnpike to draw more water from well-based sources that are experiencing dwindling availability and deteriorating quality.
Replacing water-based urinals with chemical urinals in men's rest-rooms systemwide could conserve 25 million gallons of water a year.
If the turnpike hierarchy would show the same enthusiasm rebuilding interchanges to provide direct connections with Interstate 79 in Cranberry, Route 30 in Breezewood and I-81 in Carlisle, motorists and truckers might save 25 million gallons of fuel per year.
The gang will spend the next 18 months near Carlisle (except for 45 vacation days, holidays and sick days a year) while the new digs are prepared.
Given the 43-year age of the three-story, stone-glass-and-marble monument of highway government, the turnpike can make a pretty valid case for investing some of your tolls in a modern building.
You understand. Technology advances like waterless urinals must be accommodated. Expansion projects in Western Pennsylvania have put more political hires on staff and they're running out of room. Marketing was enlarged to treat us as "customers" -- the latest buzzword for publicly-funded transportation agencies.
The new entrance is to be "a dramatic, three-story glass atrium," according to a turnpike news release. The south side facing the turnpike will be the building's "hood ornament," with asymmetrical features, and a top-floor meeting room for our five Pennsylvania Turnpike commissioners.
Limestone being used in the project is to be indigenous to the area or quarried within a 100-mile radius. The overall size of the building will be increased from 112,000 square feet to 164,000 square feet. A custom-landscaped "walking path" will lead to and from the employee parking lot. American elm trees are being "reintroduced to the property."
Not that the turnpike hasn't kept the bill-paying public in mind.
The Turnpike commissioners, whose part-time, politically appointed positions provide them $26,000 a year, secretary, car, expenses, pension, insurance and other perks, have agreed to cut the size of their private offices by a third, from 450 square feet to 300 square feet. Usually, the offices are used no more than two days a month.
Instead of getting new desks, the turnpike is going to refurbish the commissioners' present desks. The executive dining room has been eliminated.
Original materials such as the marble walls, natural stone and walnut paneling have been integrated into the new design where possible.
State-of-the-art video teleconferencing equipment will cut down on travel expenses.
Other cost-saving measures, along with the water-saving feature of the new men's urinals, will include natural lighting, energy-saving utilities and techniques that use recycled materials.
If you happen to be driving east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike during the next 18 months, check out the progress.
The turnpike's administration building will be on your left side, about a mile east of the Susquehanna River, as you approach Interchange 19 and the Highspire toll plaza.
Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Please include your address and phone number.
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