Mooching Liberal Fat Cats Riding Subsidized Trains

Local suburban angry conservative columnist Tony Phyrillas is angry at liberals! Of course, you say. Yes, but only this time he’s angry at liberals for mass transit. (According to his bio on the prestigious WEBCommentary.com, Phyrillas was also “named one of the leading Greek-American bloggers in the world by Odyssey magazine.”)

According to Phyrillas, SEPTA shouldn’t be subsidized because the only people who take it are rich bastards who could afford to pay more to take the train into town.

I don’t know how much the train ride into Center City costs, but let’s say it’s $10 a day. Can a family making $200,000 a year afford to pay $20 a day to get to work? I think they can, but why should they when Pennsylvania taxpayers pick up the tab?

Ahh, the ol’ strategy of admitting you didn’t bother to look anything up in the first sentence up there. I wonder if the other top Greek-American bloggers know to look up things?

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Street Administration Declares Major Combat Operations Over In War On Potholes

The city of Philadelphia has been dealing with this problem for a while. It’s been a scourge on our city, it’s led to several million editorials and columns from the local newspapers and we’ve been praying for help from the state so that the problem could finally end.

We’re talking, of course, about the scourge of potholes.

But fear not! The Streets department has declared that, indeed, we’re winning the war:

The Street administration is declaring victory in its war, begun last April, on potholes.

In April, the Streets Department launched a 100-day assault on potholes, dubbed “Operation Smooth Streets.” That effort comes to a close on Friday.

Streets commissioner Clarena Tolson says they have worked through a huge backlog of potholes and now have a one-day turnaround on filling the holes:

“We’ve cleared out our backlog of potholes by repairing over 13,490 potholes. And of them, over 83 percent were done within one day.”

Yes! Now, guys, about that other thing…

Street Administration Pleased With Pothole-Filling Progress [KYW 1060]

Something Is Rotten In The State Of PennDOT

There was a meeting yesterday about the extension of Woodhaven Road, which is having a race against finding a use for the old Byberry Hospital for “project in the Far Northeast that will take longest to get done.”

Woodhaven Road (PA Route 63) was “completed” in 1966. (So it’s beating Byberry.) It connects I-95 and the Boulevard. Its western end is at a small two-lane road, Evans Street, which dumps everyone onto Byberry Road in Somerton. If you’ve ever driven on Byberry Road in that area at any time besides, oh, 3 a.m., you’ll know that it’s possibly the most congested road in the world.

And so there have been plans to extend Woodhaven Road to Bustleton Road, but naturally residents in the area have complaints, NIMBY, blah blah blah, you get the idea. They’ve come together in the Tri-County Coalition to fight it, and, like many community groups fighting the government, sometimes the rhetoric is a bit over-the-top:

“Clearly there is no honor in PennDOT,” Tri-County spokesman Jim O’Neill said.

Yes, clearly, there is no honor in this state agency with a faceless bureaucracy! There is no honor in retreat! We will not go down without a fight! Win this one for the gipper!

Extension opponents blast PennDOT [Bucks County Courier Times]
Woodhaven Road (PA-63) [PhillyRoads.com]