Category: default || By jt3y

The ongoing installation of new traffic lights on the west end of the Jerome Avenue Bridge will end a long-standing tradition known to anyone who learned to drive in McKeesport.

I'm referring to the notorious "Port Vue Left."

A Port Vue Left is similar to the famous "Pittsburgh Left," where the first car at a red light trying to make a left turn punches the gas as soon as the light turns green.

But a Port Vue Left describes a left turn made at one particular intersection: The west end of the Jerome Avenue Bridge where Ramp One and Romine Avenue meet West Fifth Avenue.

In fact, a Port Vue Left can only be made by drivers heading outbound from Downtown toward Port Vue --- hence the name.

The green light for outbound drivers on the bridge is advanced by several seconds. And when the light goes green, drivers headed toward Port Vue stomp the accelerator and peel off toward Romine Avenue, no matter where they're stopped on the Jerome Avenue Bridge (even seven or eight cars behind the light) zipping up the wrong lane to make the left turn.

Non-McKeesporters will swear I'm making this up, but I'm as serious as a heart attack. (Or a head-on collision.)

Problems arise when an out-of-town driver doesn't realize what's going to happen, and sits in the left, outbound lane, thinking there's going to be a nice orderly progression when the light turns green.

Then the traffic signal changes, and chaos erupts all around him, like a stampede to the cookie table at a Mon Valley wedding.

And even some natives hesitate, meaning that when inbound traffic gets the green signal a few seconds later, those drivers wind up tangled with one last pokey car headed to Romine Avenue the wrong way.

Alas, the new signals apparently will include a green turning arrow for Romine Avenue, and another beloved tradition, like going to the morgue on prom night and fist-fighting on Tech High Field after McKeesport-Glassport football games, will come to an end.

As a wise man once said: "The moving finger flips, and having flipped, drives on."

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Elsewhere In The News: South Allegheny School District has joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a bill that divided up students from Duquesne High School between East Allegheny and West Mifflin high schools.

According to Pat Cloonan in the Daily News, the district is concerned about a provision that requires school districts within three miles of Duquesne to give preferential treatment when hiring to teachers laid off from Duquesne High.

Curiously, South Allegheny wouldn't be affected by that provision. As Cloonan points out, it's 3.5 miles away.

But as a former South Allegheny resident, I have to wonder if the school board is more concerned about the precedent the law set.

Because, you see, what if another high school closed in the not-too-distant future, and South Allegheny was compelled by the state to take its students?

Like, say, Clairton High School.

And what does Clairton have in common with Duquesne? G'wan, guess. Winner gets an all-expenses paid trip to Glassport and a 45-rpm recording of "Ebony and Ivory."

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P.S.: A reminder that opinions expressed at the Almanac are mine and mine alone.

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In Other Business: Football game? What football game? What's a football?

Just wait'll next year.

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You Said It: Lots of good comments on the Mo-Fo Excessway essay earlier this week, many of them from Andrea. I wish I shared her optimism that 50 years of highway-centric American transportation policies can be reversed. Call me a bitter, warped cynic.

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To Do This Weekend: It's a music-filled weekend, and if you like to dance, we got some dancin' for you. There's ballroom dancing tonight at 8:30 with the Wally Merriman Trio at Elks Lodge No. 11 on Buttermilk Hollow Road in Lincoln Place. Call (412) 461-3322. At the Palisades, Fifth Avenue and Water Street, Downtown, there's country line dancing tonight and oldies tomorrow. Both of those events start at 8:30 p.m. Call (412) 678-6979.

Meanwhile, our friends at The Well Ministries host their seventh-annual All-Day Gospel Sing from 12 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at the bandshell in Renziehausen Park. A children's hour starts with a puppet show at noon, followed by local groups and artists like Gail Perney, Chalice, Betty Riecks, Abraham's Promise, George Brletic, and many others. In case of rain, the concert will move to First Church of the Open Bible, 719 Union Ave. Call (412) 664-9355 or visit the Well Ministries website.

Finally (whew!) West Mifflin Community Day starts at 12 p.m. tomorrow at West Mifflin Area High School on Commonwealth Avenue near Kennywood Park. There will be a parade, a car cruise, live music and fireworks at 8:30 p.m. Call (412) 464-1918.