Laurel: To building bridges. And roads and sidewalks and more. On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Financing Authority gave the go-ahead for $48 million in multimodal transportation projects. Among them are $4.6 million in projects in Allegheny, Armstrong and Westmoreland counties.

These are not giant bypasses or miles of asphalt poured on an interstate. These are hometown, backyard kind of projects. They include a $200,000 Rankin Street revitalization project in Arnold and $375,000 for the Complete Street project in New Kensington, $750,000 for a pedestrian bridge in Pittsburgh’s Larimer neighborhood and $300,000 for a sidewalk project in Hazelwood.

“Investing in these critical improvements now will make the lives of our 12.8 million residents — and visitors — easier for years to come,” said Gov. Tom Wolf.

When infrastructure is a political buzzword, it is distant and easy to ignore. When it is as concrete as the concrete poured in a construction project, it is easier to connect to real action.

Lance: To taking too long. Paying taxes can be painful, but at least when you write that check, it’s over with, right?

Not in Pittsburgh, where the city’s finance office is backlogged with payments it hasn’t processed for as long as two months.

It started with the coronavirus pandemic because hey, doesn’t everything? But the staffing cuts that were made because of covid-19 are only half the story.

The other half is the new parks tax. While in 2022, those bills will be combined with real estate taxes for one simple payment, that isn’t the case this year, leaving the finance office with twice the payments to process and half the staff to accomplish the job.

“Taxpayers have every right to be upset. We’re doing everything we can to alleviate the problem,” City Finance Director Douglas Anderson said.

Will everything involve waiving insufficient funds fees when taxpayers bounce checks that should have cleared in February?

Laurel: To a special kind of court. The Westmoreland County drug court has been trying to bridge the needs of people dealing with substance abuse problems and the requirements of the criminal justice system since 2015. It has now received accreditation from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

To qualify for that designation, the drug court program — which operates on $390,000 in grant money — was required to meet 10 national standards for providing oversight of rehabilitation and treatment programs, monitoring and interactions with participants in a non-adversarial format.

Accreditation could mean more grant money to help with things like drug testing, transportation and housing assistance.

In six years, 51 participants have graduated. Another is slated to complete the two-year program April 28. With more grant money providing additional resources, those numbers can only grow.

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