Category: default || By jt3y

Today's Almanac is kind of a grab-bag of items I've stumbled over, with no real connecting theme. Maybe you should pretend this is the noon news ... perhaps on the mythical TV station that was supposed to be built in Irwin, but never was ... yet with fewer political ads and no happy talk.

And with less hair, too.

. . .

Our top story: You might see some odd-looking speed limit signs in North Huntingdon Township. Township police are experimenting with unusual color schemes and numbers in an attempt to catch motorists' attention, according to Patti Dobranski in the Tribune-Review Greensburg Astonisher.

Sgt. Duane Kucera came up with the idea after seeing a "13 MPH" speed limit in a North Hills housing development: "I kept thinking about it, and thought that, if I noticed it, something like that may work to slow down drivers in the township. People get so accustomed to seeing 'Watch Children' signs, they don't always pay attention to them."

Dobranski reports that a 19-mph speed limit has now been set on Biddle Avenue in Westmoreland City, and a second will soon be placed in Hahntown. In addition, a white-on-green 20-mph speed limit sign has been placed on Mockingbird Hill to slow drivers near the elementary and middle schools there.

It's a novel idea, and it just might work.

Maybe they could go one step further, though. They could put the speed limits in formulas, and force drivers to solve for "x."

Given the average American's math literacy, that would slow traffic way down. Some people might have to pull to the side of the road and get out calculators.

I understand that other speed limits that were considered and rejected include “i,” “x/0” and “6.0221415 times 10 to the 23rd power.”

On the other hand, I think I saw someone on Route 30 recently who appeared to be trying to reach that last speed.

. . .

In sports: The nation's only truly honest newspaper, The Onion, is running a fantasy football contest this season. Unlike other contests, however, the object is to pick the worst players in the league.

"Think that only Fortune 500 CEOs get rewarded for their incompetence and failure?" asks the Onion. "No more! Now you can field a winning fantasy roster of underachievers." Top prize is $5,000.

Among the top three "busts" of the week? Hines Ward ("who wouldn't have loved to have Ward's 17-yard performance?") and Ben Roethlisberger ("this year's 'Snakes on a Plane'").

Oooh, that smarts!

. . .

And finally, with today's "Speak Out," filling in for Al Julius, it's Anthony, one-half of Tunesmith and Anthony, with a commentary about the Port Authority's plans to extend the Downtown subway line to the stadiums (stadia?) on the North Shore ... and on the Post-Gazette for endorsing those plans:

The cost of this asinine project has ballooned to $435 million, or $68,655.30 per foot. The Federal Transit Administration has committed to pick up 80% of that tab. To quote Don Vito Corleone, “How did things ever get so far? I don’t know. It was so — unfortunate — so unnecessary.” ...

How about maximizing existing capacity ... before you go and expand capacity? Every day it seems that PAT is whining that it’s going to have to increase fares because ridership is down. Capacity seems to be the least of their problems.

And as far as establishing a beachhead that may extend the T north and west, perhaps this $435 million pill would be easier to swallow if this project was one step in one bigger master public transportation plan, but it is not. This sort of piecemeal urban planning that the P-G is endorsing with that argument is a big reason why it’s so difficult to get around this city.

Anthony points out several other things that $435 million could pay for, including:

• four-year degrees for 8,900 kids at Pitt or 3,200 at CMU


• at least 250 City of Pittsburgh police officers for 20 years


• all real estate taxes in the city of Pittsburgh for three years for all taxpayers

Or 87 million pounds of Romano cheese, according to his headline.

I'll add that it would also pay for 1,035,714 "cookie-grams" to politicians in Harrisburg, which according to WTAE-TV, the Port Authority has purchased in the past.