Please paint street, not cars

Web Extras: Marketplace, Bridal, Headlines by Email, Postcards

Please paint street, not cars

Sunday, December 19, 1999

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Getting Around gets letters and lots of e-mail, too.Shortly after Susan Gaugler of Upper St. Clair passed a line-striping crew on Interstate 79 near Carnegie this month, she discovered white highway-type paint had been sprayed on the side panels of her new minivan.

"One of their paint nozzles must have been pointing out instead of down," she said. "I believe the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is responsible. How do I go about getting this done?"

Dear Susan:

You're not alone. Diane McDowell of Braddock Hills had the same thing happen to her car Aug. 29 on the Parkway East.

Spokesman Dick Skrinjar said the department would investigate the claims if Gaugler and McDowell will e-mail the details to www.penndotpgh.com or phone the information to (800) FIX-ROAD.

Vince Abate of Mount Washington isn't happy with PennDOT. He uses the adjectives "idiotic" and "goofy" to describe the bureaucracy that created Interstate 79 as "a road to hell."

Abate is especially bugged by the layout and sparse lighting at roadside rest areas near the Allegheny-Washington county line, facilities he views as sanctuaries for criminals. "With the gas tax money we pay, those rest stops should be lit up like a Xmas tree," he wrote.

Dear Vince:

That's good advice for busy rest stops in urban areas. But PennDOT has to jump through hoops, including feasibility, cost-benefit, traffic impact, environmental and other studies. The spruce-up would have to be placed on regional and state funding programs. Consultants would have to be hired. Because I-79 is an interstate highway, PennDOT would require federal approvals. Preliminary and final designs must precede construction.

For your suggestion, I'll ask PennDOT to invite you to the ribbon-cutting. See you there ... about 15 years from now.

Charles Bastian of Monroeville, who drives to work in Bridgeville, is another unhappy camper. "If you don't think that [commute] is not an adventure in driving every day, nothing is," he says.

Sitting in his car in Parkway East and Parkway West traffic for 22 years has given him time to be creative. Here's the ditty he wants to share with other trans-poor-tation victims.

Potholes.

Inconvenience.

Traffic

Tie-ups.

Sorry

Bridges.

Unreal

Roads.

God

Help us!

Dear Chuck:

Cool! I've been sitting in Route 51 traffic for 29 years. That's partly how I got to be transportation "beat" reporter, because every day on that road is an adventure, too.

Anthony Merante of Whitehall and another e-mailer say PennDOT has confusing signage on the northbound lanes of Route 51 at the Liberty Tunnels. One sign warns drivers who enter the right lane of the tunnel, inbound, from Route 51 between 3:30 and 6 p.m. that they will have to exit to the South Side at the end.

Because the restriction does not apply on Saturday and Sunday, "This sign is an accident waiting to happen," Merant said.

"I contacted PennDOT, but they won't do anything about it. Can you get the sign fixed?"

Dear Anthony:

The informational sign you refer to not only fails to point out the Saturday-Sunday exception to the right-lane rule but should be posted at eye-level, in advance of the tunnel. A new overhead sign above the right lane should be a 100 percent changeable message, fiber-optic sign, reading either "Downtown" or "South Side." Currently, the fiber-optic sign displays "Downtown," while the painted sign below displays "South Side." Which is it, PennDOT?

Al H. Merriman of Sewickley suggests PennDOT should have painted and put up reflectors on traffic islands and a new wall when it rebuilt the busy Five Points intersection just west of I-79 in Franklin Park.

"On rainy nights, you can't see where you are going," Merriman wrote. "If you are driving on Rochester Road from Duff City, you run into the wall in front of the pizza shop."

Dear Al:

The paint that might have been used at the Five Points intersection is on the side of Susan's minivan and Diane's car. (See above.)

Now, to all my friends at PennDOT, if I have any left: Merry Christmas. And a Better New Year.

Plate du jour. The Pennsylvania license plate TEACH-A was recently spotted at 7 o'clock in the morning on Route 51 in Pleasant Hills. She was headed to school, maybe?

Send your transportation questions, complaints and suggestions to Joe Grata c/o The Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Include your address and phone number, please.