Dear Mahatma: Can you find out why license tags no longer show the county in which you live? That was much more interesting and easier to remember than just a group of numbers. Why can’t they bring back the old way? - Sue
Dear Sue: The only person we could think of who would know this is Roger Duren, frequent source for this column and administrator of the state Office of Motor Vehicles.
We were right. He knew.
In fact, he said, the old numbering system was replaced in … 1968. That was to use a simplified statewide numbering system. Way back when, Duren said, there was only one plate type for passenger vehicles. Now there are 237 different plate types for passenger vehicles.
If the county identification were included on each plate, multiply 75 counties times 237 and you get 17,775 different tags that would need to be in the inventory in all those state revenue offices. Duren calls this an “inventory maintenance and distribution nightmare.”
P.S. Told the county tags were phased out in 1968, Sue allowed as to how that made her feel old. To which we say, as we always say to our very own favorite girl: Darlin’, you’ll always be 19 to us.
Dear Rajah of the Roadway: With the new bridge construction at Big Rock, all that new paint makes the existing bridges in the immediate area look bad. Are there plans to paint the Kanis Road, Markham Street and pedestrian bridges over Interstate 430?
- Fashion Policeman
Dear Fashionable Guy: The contract let to build the Big Rock interchange does not include the painting of the overpasses at Kanis and Markham, nor the pedestrian bridge. So says the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Neither are there plans now for a paint job, but the idea may be revisited once the Big Rock is done.
Rajah of the Roadway - excellent nom de plume. Or is that nom de guerre? We flunked French. Repeatedly.
Dear Mahatma: Eighth Street in downtown Little Rock has been one-way west for about a million years. Recently it was repainted and reconfigured to be two way from Broadway to Chester, across which is an on-ramp to Interstate 630. How come this change? - Headed West
Dear West: Bill Henry, the city’s traffic engineering manager, has been around Little Rock traffic for a really long time. How long?
Long enough to remember that Eighth Street was once a major westbound roadway, coupled with Ninth Street as a major eastbound roadway. I-630 now serves that purpose.
Over the years, he says, businesses in downtown have asked that both revert to two-way. It happened on Ninth Street some years ago, and now Eighth Street.
Being two-way allows for better access to those businesses.
Vanity plate seen in Hillcrest: JONGALT - an apparent reference to John Galt, hero of the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged, about the conflict between the individual and the collective.
It’s deep out there.
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/26/2013