Things that don't make the news still provide insight into a wide range of transportation matters.
For instance, authorities conducted a sobriety checkpoint on the Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh on a Friday night in September.
"I understand the importance, but to block a bridge was a total joke, dumb, a safety issue," said a contributor whose name I agreed to keep confidential. "Many drivers made a U-turn and went another direction."
Traffic was so backed up that it took the e-mailer 1 hour and 40 minutes to go from the Veterans Bridge to the outbound tunnel.
"I understand they have to protect the night businesses in the South Side and Strip District, where they surely would catch many intoxicated drivers," he said. "However, stopping people on the Liberty Bridge leaves a negative, long-lasting impression on many people needlessly inconvenienced. The city should be thinking of ways to keep people here instead of pushing them out the door."
Ohio Township has billed the developer of River Pointe Plaza/Wal-Mart in Kilbuck for 265 hours at $45 an hour for police who helped with traffic while the massive landslide closed Route 65. PennDOT District 11 Executive Dan Cessna said his office still was adding up its bill for material and staff time.
Many of the Route 60 traffic delineator posts topped with yellow reflectors were run down in the south lane between Hopewell and the Allegheny County line about a month ago, probably a deliberate act by some jerk. "They couldn't have been more than a few months old," John Langas reported.
A recent waterline break created a "triple bump" between the Parkway West and the West End on Route 51. "It's doubly irritating knowing this stretch was repaved this spring," e-mailed Kevin Murphy, of Beechview. "Why isn't government tougher on utilities about restoring roads to the way they were prior to these incidents?"
An old "Budd Car" with a self-contained diesel engine that the Port Authority operated until 1989 on its Mon Valley commuter rail line is alive and well. The Fayette Central Railroad leased the 53-year-old passenger car from the B&O Railroad Museum. It runs the restored vehicle out of Uniontown on weekends. Info at 1-877-321-3277.
Riders still wonder why the Port Authority puts expensive public address systems in trolleys but fails to provide useful information, such as on the recent afternoon when an inbound car derailed and stranded thousands. For the 15 minutes that Janine Peiritsch, of Beechview, and others sat in the second car of the two-car train that day, nobody said a word. When she went to the fare booth, nobody was there. And when she asked a bunch of authority employees about getting home, they wished her "good luck."
Paving on PennDOT-owned roads has to be finished by Tuesday, the official end of the asphalt season. The few exceptions have to be approved by the executive in charge of engineering districts, and they're usually restricted to patching and bridge approach ramps. Asphalt has to be delivered in heated or insulated truck beds when it's this cold.
PennDOT has bought two new tow trucks, $130,000 each, for the Squirrel Hill and Fort Pitt tunnels. They replace two that had been in use for 27 years.
Have you been breathing easier? Since Oct. 15, more than 8 million diesel-powered trucks and buses across the United States have been burning ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel said to be 97 percent cleaner than the old formula. Last week, the Port Authority paid $2.30 a gallon. Its buses consume 9.6 million gallons a year.
It has been six years, three months and 17 days since public officials held a news conference in Oakmont and released a $100,000 study forecasting that 1,200 people a day would ride an Alle-Kiski commuter train to Pittsburgh. They just didn't say when.
Believe it! Amtrak closed the fiscal year with $1.37 billion in ticket revenue, $28 million more than budgeted and best in the history of the National Passenger Railroad Corp. The trains carried 24.3 million riders, also beating projections.
Elsewhere. New "Keystone" service gets under way tomorrow, featuring trains running at speeds up to 110 mph and cutting travel time by up to 30 minutes between Harrisburg and Philadelphia. Ten of 14 weekday trips will continue through to New York City.
Plate du jour. David Veres recently spotted the Pennsylvania personalized license plate B4I SLEP in Pleasant Hills, where he lives. Poet Robert Frost would have loved that one, wishing more miles to go in his car.
First Published: October 29, 2006, 4:00 a.m.
