Hats Off To PennDOT

PennDOT workers were in the ‘burbs the other day to put up a new sign for Hatboro. Wouldn’t you know, they put one up that said Hatfield Borough instead.

Hegele says confusing the two boroughs, which are about 15 miles apart, while funny, isn’t unusual. “I guess it gets confusing because the names are so close, and the boroughs are so close together,” Hegele said. “A lot of times we get calls for Hatfield Borough and even their mail gets sent here by mistake.”

Judy Emig, Hatboro’s tax collector, said she even gets tax bills for Hatfield residents from time to time. “Fortunately, I know a lot of the tax collectors (in Hatfield) so it’s more of an inconvenience than a problem,” Emig said.

Hatfield Borough officials did not return calls for comment.

Um. What would the Hatfield Borough officials have to say, anyway? I do really enjoy that last sentence, though.

Sign switching not funny in Hatboro [The Intelligencer]

License Plates In Pa. Will Not Offend

If something like that did come up, officials probably wouldn’t be LOL — laughing out loud.

The Patriot-News has a story about Pennsylvania’s license plates and the banning of “offensive acronyms,” like WTF or OMG. Naturally, parts of the article achieve near-perfect comedic scores.

In Pennsylvania, licensing officials use the online acronym dictionary, www.gaarde.org, to check letter combinations of issued plates and personalized plates, said Anita M. Wasko, director of the state’s bureau of motor vehicles.

They also don’t allow vowels in the center position of any three letter combination, excluding vanity tags. “We want to make sure we don’t have something out there that would cause issues,” Wasko said. “Something of a vulgar nature.” [...]

Licensing officials estimate they dish out about 15,000 vanity tags annually and all words are checked against a 9,600-word do-not-issue list along with English-Spanish, English-French and English-Italian dictionaries — in case anyone tries to slip any foreign-language obscenities by them — said Steve Tomassini, a manager in the bureau.

Bureau officials would not disclose what is on the list, but Wasko said it is continually updated. The bureau is also authorized to reject a license plate if they deem it offensive, she said. “People enjoy being able to purchase a vanity plate that reflects them,” Wasko said. “It’s important [to keep] the integrity of the program.”

Wow, that’s quite a lot of checking to make sure nobody is offended by a license plate. It’s worth it, though: Once the integrity of a license plate program goes downhill, the whole state is pretty much screwed.

OMG! PennDOT restricts Web lingo [The Patriot-News]
Image via Triborough

95 Reopened; Cracked Pillar Enshrined

Well, well! After two days of drivers plowing through potholes on Richmond Street, 95 in Port Richmond is now re-opened. Although PennDOT pinky swore it would re-open Wednesday night, it actually reopened early this morning.

KYW 1060 reports, “KYW’s John McDevitt reports workers made significant progress since Tuesday.” I hope so, since they closed down a major highway for two days. Ooh, significant progress. Good job, guys! Still, the closing only lasted four rush hours; this is clearly an actual quick bang-up job by a state agency, and frankly I’m a little scared the end of the world might be soon because of it.

Anyway, apparently the problem is highway salt, and it’s going to cost billions to completely overhaul I-95 over the next couple years. Ooh, boy, I can’t wait!

95 Reopens [KYW 1060]
[Photo of cracked pillar by Brad Maule]

PennDOT Installing L

NBC 10 says it has exposed the “mystery” of the color-coded detour signs all around Pennsylvania. Okay, so I’d never seen these signs before the NBC 10 report, but I don’t have a car anymore. Apparently, though, there are orange, blue and green signs with arrows that say “detour” on them. They also helpfully note the colors with words for the colorblind!

Anyway, the signs are part of a post-9/11 emergency plan, apparently. This color-coded system shares a lot in common with the color coded terror alert system also put in place after 9/11: Nobody has any idea what the colors mean and nobody really pays any attention to it, anyway. But, oh man, if the Willow Grove Mall is attacked, we need an exit strategy!

The color-coded detour signs are going up all across the state in the coming months. (Currently, they lead to nowhere.) They’re meant to be able to direct drivers back to the Interstate in case of a forced exit due to an accident or something. NBC 10’s Lynn Berry: “If there’s an incident, message boards and media reports will be made telling motorists which color detour to take.”

So if you’re in your car and forced to exit I-95, just check in to Philadelphia Will Do and I’ll you which detour to take (the blue one). I think it’s settled: This is the most successful plan of all time.

Update: I apparently quit writing this headline right in the middle of it. But I kinda like it now, so you can just pretend I died halfway through.

Every Bridge In Area About To Collapse

Hey, remember that bridge that collapsed in Minnesota? Yeah, it wasn’t that long ago, but now we’re on to Hurricane Dean (Cain), so it’s okay if you forgot. Anyway, a bridge collapsed in Minnesota and people died and it was all sad.

The bridge was rated “structurally deficient” before it collapsed, but didn’t have any weight restrictions and remained open. And guess where else there are structurally deficient bridges? Yes: All over the freaking country. Actually, 57 bridges in the area are rated as bad or worse than the Minnesota bridge.

The Minnesota bridge was rated a 50 (out of 100). One bridge, in Bridgeport (duh), is rated a 3. A three! Yet the engineer for the state says: “It’s bad, but it’s safe.” Not to quarrel with someone who knows much more about this than I do, but I think I’ll try to avoid that bridge. Fortunately, I don’t have a car.

Statistically, the chances of you personally being on a bridge when it collapses is most likely infinitesimally low. Or, rather, it would be if every fifteen bridges on I-95 weren’t rated lower than the Minnesota bridge. (Plus: Seven more on the turnpike!) And if you’re headed to New Jersey, the Burlington-Bristol Bridge is actually going to collapse later today, and it doesn’t cost a nickel anymore, so I’d go over the Tacony-Palmyra instead.

57 bridges in area rate ‘deficient’ [Inquirer]

Rendell: Stranding Hundreds Of Motorists On Highways For 24 Hours Not Official Pennsylvania State Policy

Ed Rendell came out today and said that, despite the icy conditions, keeping people on stuck on Interstate 78 for up to 24 hours was not really all that, y’know, acceptable.

Here’s the backstory: On Valentine’s Day, around midday on Interstate 78, several tractor trailers jackknifed and stalled traffic. But officials (whoever they are) kept the road open despite icy conditions — a three-inch ice “crust” — and once the tractor trailer mess was cleaned up, the trucks behind them were stuck in the ice and couldn’t move. Officials didn’t close the road until 5 p.m. and didn’t notify Ed Rendell until 8 p.m. (What, was Eddie not watching the news? I knew before him!) The National Guard had to be called in to deliver food, fuel and baby supplies. The last of the stranded motorists weren’t freed until this morning.

The roads — I-78, I-80, I-81 — were then closed and workers sent to clear them fully. They’re still closed, though. And there was another accident when a truck driver was hit by falling ice from another truck hit his windshield and the truck, containing highly-flammable xylene, overturned.

So, basically, SEPTA is screwed unless it gets $100 million in state funding and the highways are screwed whenever it snows. Hooray for Pennsylvania!

Gov. calls state response to I-78 traffic fiasco unacceptable [AP/Philly.com]
Jan. 18, 2006: Apocalypse Philadelphia: The Xylene Spill
[Photo via Carnegie Mellon]

Leftovers: JGT’s Big Top

• Be sure to check out Johnny Goodtimes’ Roadtrip Blog, which he’s doing for Traffic.com as a part of some promotion. You may remember that I posted this early last month. If this isn’t the strangest thing to come out of my blog, I don’t know what is. [Traffic.com Roadtrip]

• What’s scarier in this story: That Penndot managed to put up a sign that says TRUKC, or that said sign costs $3,100. Mhmmm, let’s go with the latter. [AP/NBC 10]

• The now ex-Lehigh student who robbed a bank last December has pled guilty. [AP/The Express-Times]

• The hottest fad in Philadelphia is, of course, barbershop. Baby on board, something, something, Burt Ward. [KYW 1060]

• The Tasty Baking Co. has sold out to the Donald. Well, sorta. The Donald paid Tastykake $1.4 million for the option to purchase the site. It’s like a personal seat license for a casino! [Daily News]