Readers write, call and e-mail "Getting Around" with transportation comments, questions and complaints.
They and I wonder ...
Why do people still gripe about extending light-rail service to the North Shore when there is no cost to the city, only a 3 1/3 percent cost to Allegheny County and a 30-to-1 return on local tax dollars? The state and federal governments have earmarked $380 million for the Port Authority's project. Use it or lose it.
Why do critics still insist the Port Authority or public officials can spend the money on something else? Why do they still say it's not too late to change the alignment or to cross the Allegheny River on a bridge instead of in twin tunnels? If the project is lost, a strong possibility, guess who'll be the first to complain?
Why did the Pittsburgh Planning Commission wait until Sept. 14 to raise questions about North Shore station locations and designs when the Port Authority has been planning and seeking input for the past five years? Changes it wants, if feasible or even possible at this point, would cost tens of millions of dollars. When you're not paying the bill, it's easy to tell others what to do.
Why doesn't the Port Authority just forget about extending the T to the North Shore? Forget that $40 million was wasted on planning and lining up precious funding. Forget that no other transit projects will be built for another 10 to 20 years, if at all, because too many Pittsburghers live in the past.
Why can police and sheriff's office vehicles park on Ross Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues while not on official business? That's not the only place. People who enforce the law should not flout the law.
Why is an overhead sign still missing that indicates the preferred flow of traffic coming off the Crosstown Boulevard at the intersection with Seventh Avenue and Grant Street? Does a driver turn left or go straight? The sign over the left lane has been gone for several years. Officials have been too busy looking for free parking to notice.
Why did the attendant supervising traffic on Mazeroski Way before a Pirates game tell me to make a right turn onto General Robinson Street when I asked directions for Gold Lot 4 when he was standing in front of it? What a jerk.
Why does the city allow four cops chatting at one intersection but nobody at the next intersection while fans leaving Steelers games sit stopped in North Shore traffic? City police need a new coach and a new game plan.
Why aren't more people carpooling, vanpooling or riding public transit with gas costing almost $3 a gallon and going up again? People are in denial; people are willing to pay the price.
Why do two or three cars on Lewis Run Road stop so far apart when the traffic light at the Route 51 intersection turns red? If they closed the gap, a half-dozen drivers waiting to turn right could squeeze past rather than sit in line and slow overall traffic when Steel Valley Vo-Tech School dismisses classes. That's not the only place.
Why is a $1.8 million 20/20 Vision Study, touted five years ago as a blueprint to guide the future of transit in southwestern Pennsylvania, yet to be finalized and released? The "draft" report has been done for almost four years. Another one bites the dust.
Why are Pittsburghers critical of people who own "foreign-made" cars? A Toyota Avalon built in Kentucky has 70 percent domestic content; 61 percent of a Chrylser PT Cruiser is "Made in Mexico." So much for "Buy America."
Why do members of Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, complain about news coverage and "not telling our side of the story?" How can we? There's only one spokesman and his main comment is usually "no comment." That's when he doesn't hang up.
Why doesn't PennDOT do something about accidents and near misses when drivers exiting the inbound Fort Pitt Bridge barrel down the Boulevard of Allies exit ramp into town? Traffic lights mounted on poles on Commonwealth Place sidewalks are not prominent and are lost on drivers. The $200 million Fort Pitt Bridge and Tunnel project should have provided prominent overhead traffic lights for safety's sake, same as at the intersection of the Liberty Avenue ramps at Commonwealth.
Why did PennDOT specify traffic signals with smooth, translucent lenses that drivers have trouble seeing in daylight when Fort Pitt Boulevard eastbound was rebuilt? People miss red and green lights all of the time.
Why does the "yellow" last only 2 seconds on some traffic lights but 5 seconds on others?
Why does Pennsylvania require that we "buckle up" when motorcyclists can ride without helmets? There were 157 fatal motorcycle accidents last year, eight in Allegheny County. The statistics will go up this year.
Why do people pay to use the Mon-Fayette Expressway to Jefferson Hills, only to waste some of the time they saved waiting forever for a traffic signal at the Route 51 intersection? What bird brain decided to put up "No Turn on Red" from the exit ramp to Route 51 north?
Why is the speed limit 55 mph on the 23-mile stretch of Interstate 70 in a rural area between Breezewood and the Maryland state line? When I-70 was new, the speed limit was 70 mph.
Why do Port Authority supervisors known as "The Clipboard Brigade" stand around counting trolleys while their V8-engine trucks sit idling for hours? Trolley movements can be tracked from one location, the Operations Control Center at South Hills Village.
Why does PennDOT resurface overnight on Interstate 79 but shut down the Parkway West, virtually the only road to Pittsburgh International Airport, for entire weekends?
Why are transportation bureaucrats taking forever to designate the Parkway West, Route 22/30 and Route 60 as one interstate highway?



Good advice. While in Athens, Ohio, for a Pitt football weekend, I liked this tip published in "The Insider," a local entertainment tabloid, for incoming Ohio University freshmen:
"Jaywalking may be the official sport of Athens, but if the light turns green, at least have the decency to speed up a little. It's a small town and people remember faces."



Elsewhere. An $11 million, 529-space parking garage has opened on Beaver Avenue in State College. The hourly rate is 75 cents at the six-level garage, the second tallest building in town.
Believe it! Americans take 1.1 billion trips a day, an average of four per person. And 87 percent of the trips are taken in personal vehicles.
Plate du jour. Coming home last Sunday from a Penn State football weekend, I spotted the Pennsylvania personalized license plate SUN DEE on a car parked at an Ebensburg shopping plaza.
First Published: September 25, 2005, 4:00 a.m.