River's up.

It has been just raining cats and dogs, so of course, the river is up. Actually, all three rivers are up. But the Allegheny is the one I usually focus on.

I live near it, I work near it. In essence, it is "my" river.

And it is up.

Which means construction on the North Shore Connector will likely screech to a halt.

Listen, do you hear that? The sound, like water rushing? Yeah, that's your tax money going down the drain on that silly wasteful project.

basic economics

I recently read that Mayor Wonder Boy (Luke Lip-Synchin' Ravenstahl) drinks something like 12 cans of Diet Pepsi a day.

A day!

I'm kind of alarmed by this. I mean, that has to be taking a toll on his health. The sounds like way to much caffeine consumption. And it will turn his teeth brown. Just bad news all around.

However, this is not what concerns me the most. What concerns me is the economics of it all. It just isn't very economical to drink 12 cans of Diet Pepsi a day. Everyone knows if you are going to drink that much soda, er, I mean pop, it is so much cheaper to buy it by the 2-liter.

Man, and we want him to take care of the budget of our city?

Under the river and through the woods...

Yeah, I know that isn't the correct lyrics. But eventually (2011, maybe?) you'll be able to say that here in Pittsburgh, that is, if your grandmother lives on the North "Shore".

This is all due to the North Shore Connector, a huge PAT project that recently got under way. Yes, the same people who are cutting 60% of their bus routes due to a financial deficit are also working on an underwater tunnel for subway cars that will service one of the least busy areas of town.

Yeah, re-read that again really slow and see if you catch it this time.

No? Well, I didn't think so. No matter how slow you read it, it never makes sense.

"But the federal government is paying for 80% of it" is the biggest defense.

And that doesn't matter. 20% (which is PAT's contribution) of hundreds of millions is. . . Well, more millions than PAT has.

But that isn't what I am writing about today. That is just the background. The real point of this is the flooding that occurred on all three rivers this week. Which happens. Actually pretty often.

OK, so it is a little unusual for it to happen in January, but it has been a mild winter. But it certainly is not unheard of to happen now. And we all know it happens. Regularly.

What do the flooding and the North Shore Connector have to do with each other? Well, the Connector is in it's second, maybe third week of construction, which will likely last years. And the construction site flooded. Yep, three weeks in and construction was shut down for a flood.

So, over the years that it is going to take for this thing to get built, how many times is work going to be halted for flooding? How far will it push back the completion date? How far will it take it over budget?

Are we really sure this is a good idea? Really?