 Shopping for new ideas, for maintenance, engineering, communication, equipment, administration, training, safety. If you are, then welcome to the Idea Store. A store whose stock and trade is imagination. What does this scene say to you? Pleasure, appreciation, a sense of well-being. Beautiful flowers tend to communicate all those feelings. But you can get the beautiful flowers and those responses. Pleasure, appreciation, a sense of well-being. And you do not need a formal garden to do it. All you need is a highway, wildflowers. Colorful, hearty, and available. In cooperation with state highway departments, many T-square centers are actively promoting the planning of wildflowers along the roadway. There are about 20,000 species of wildflowers native to the United States, but only 100 to 200 species are produced commercially. The plantings are balanced between annuals and perennials. The annuals are viewed as a nurse crop for the slower-developing perennials. Choosing species and mixtures that tend to grow 10 inches or less in height helps present a nice appearance, and you do not have to mow in the fall to get rid of unsightly stalks. Best of all, they sure do communicate effectively, don't they? And since we're on the roadway, let's talk about a rapidly growing national program. The Adopt a Highway Program. Ongoing in 37 states and planned for more. The Adopt a Highway Program joins together volunteers from every walk of life. While procedures vary slightly from state to state, Adopt a Highway Volunteer Groups are usually 10 to 15 in number who agree to pick up litter along a selected section of highway two to four times a year. As of July 1991, there were over 300,000 people involved nationwide, representing 25,000 groups. And is it growing? In just 18 months, Pennsylvania's program has grown to include over 1,200 groups. Over 20,000 volunteers responsible for over 2,800 miles of highway. The cost for that state's program is about $300,000, essentially the cost of coordinating and maintaining the program statewide. If the Pennsylvania DOT had done the litter pickup, the cost would have been about $1 million. Contact your T-square. See what you and they can do together to help clean up America. And as long as we are talking about communications, let's look at something a lot of municipalities do not look at often enough. Signs. Take this one, for example. Put yourself in the shoes of the good driver, the one that looks at and heeds the message on the sign. Here, watch children. Better slow down. Well, past that area. Does that mean there are no more kids? Extreme example, maybe. The ones here are even worse. Stop, stop. One's not enough. Illegal and distracting. Everyone knows stop signs are red and white. Or do they? Whoa. Here's one that's really different. But levity aside, poorly designed signs can be confusing and dangerous. One lane closed ahead. Want to guess which lane? Illegal color combination. Illegal sign, even if it is a good message. And don't forget the need to cut back on vegetation. Look at your signs. Are they doing for you, your citizens, and the motorists just what they are supposed to do? Let's do one more communications item. Either driven by embarrassment or the fear the whole thing will topple over and hurt you. Periodically, the desk gets cleaned. Out goes a lot of stuff. Like those newsletters. With lots of good tips and hints on transportation matters. But you just don't have room to keep everything. How about clipping out the little article and putting it in a little box? Call it your brainstorming box. And the next time you need an idea, go to your filing system. If you are more technically oriented, put it in your PC. And if you're looking for more items for your PC, contact your Technology Transfer Center. They have information on programs at little or no cost. From the National Association of County Engineers, Kansas University Technology Transfer Center, the Federal Highway APWA Clearinghouse Newsletter, and many more. Here are some addresses you can use. National Association of County Engineers, care of National Association of Counties, 440 1st Street, Northwest, Washington DC, 2001. The University of Kansas, PC Trans. The Transportation Center, 2011 Learned Hall, Lawrence, Kansas, 66045. The T-square Clearinghouse, American Public Works Association, 1301 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Suite 401, Washington DC, 2004. And be sure you contact your T-square center. Signs, cones, barrels, flaggers, computerized message boards, all provide vital information to the motorist and provide safety for the highway worker. At night, that job depends on lights, like these. Operating on the well-proven old adage that people will take even what they cannot use, George Cross, Saginaw County, Michigan, got tired of the vandalism. Now, that is a nice word for it. And decided to do something. Result, lights in locked cages. Voted from the inside to the barricade, the locked cages seem to stay around. Battery goes out, drop a new light in, and change the old batteries back at the shop. The Saginaw County Road Commission used to figure on 100 lights per year being damaged or stolen. Now, almost none. At $19 apiece, the old wash rate was $1,900 a year. The cages costing $2 for material and $8 for labor prevent that loss. Put another way, for 10 bucks, you can cut the legs out from under your lights. For more information, contact the Transportation Technology Transfer Center, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technology University, 1400 Townsend Drive, Houghton, Michigan, 499-311298, or call area code 906-487-2102. In Idea Store Edition 3, we featured an idea from Pike County, Kentucky. If you did not see it, here's what it was about. Pike County, Kentucky uses precast, panelized walls, locally produced, easily installed, and interlocked with steel reinforcing bars and anchor blocks. The walls have proved an effective low-cost answer to erosion. Many thanks to Judge Paul Patton of Pike County for his idea, and for further information, call the Kentucky T-Square Center for Pat C. Anderson at area code 606-257-4509. Martin Sorensen, Euclund Township, Pennsylvania, has expanded the inventory, using an outdoor plastic-covered shed, Martin and his staff are molding fence posts, sign posts, parking bumpers, and sewer grates. Low-cost, wide use, easy to do, a good idea, and primarily a wintertime activity, a time when things seem to slow down a little. You can contact Martin by writing to Mr. Martin Sorensen, Euclund Township, Pennsylvania, 19480, or call area code 215-458-8530. Now, a training item. The Pennsylvania Road Scholar Program. Inaugurated in July 1989, this is a 16-course program. The mandatory courses consist of asphalt roads, common maintenance problems, drainage, the key to roads that last, seal coats and slurry seals, asphalt resurfacing, equipment operation and worker safety, proper signs and signing, work zone traffic control, risk management, tort liability, winter maintenance, and roadside vegetation control. There are also elective courses. Unpaved and gravel roads, common maintenance problems, bridge maintenance and safety inspection, geotextiles, asphalt recycling, timber bridges, and roadside safety features. The courses are conducted at convenient locations and geared primarily for municipal road workers, laborers, and equipment operators. Program has over 680 students of whom almost 100 have completed all the requirements to be a road scholar. And now there is to be a Road Scholar II program aimed at managers, public works directors, and municipal engineers. Our tap is alive and well in Pennsylvania. To find out more about it, contact the Pennsylvania Local Roads Program, Penn State Harrisburg, 777 West Harrisburg Pike, 168 Craig's Building, Middletown, Pennsylvania, 170574898, or call 7179486098. No idea store addition would be complete without a safety item. And this one is about a safety program and a city, Kissimmee, Florida. Located just south of Orlando, this is a city with a workforce that takes safety seriously. From the boss to the coordinator to the committee members in and out of the building with a good informative newsletter, certificates complete with pastry for training successes, happy winners from an ongoing contest among employees, a monthly safety packet, and even a bingo game. And the biggest winner, the city of Kissimmee. It works for them, and it can for you. Contact Terry E. Smith, Risk Benefits Coordinator, Post Office Box 421608, Kissimmee, Florida, 347421608, or call area code 407-847-2821, extension 2112. Obviously, an idea store needs ideas. Here's how to get your idea on the program. Tell us who you are. Better yet, send us a picture. Give us a good description of what your idea is. Show us the where at the locale of the idea is important. Why was the idea done? For reasons of safety, cost benefits, etc. How do you do it? Show us step by step. Provide plans, pictures, whatever you think we might need to understand what it is you want us to understand. Send your idea to your Technology Transfer Center for evaluation. Thanks for shopping at the idea store. Until next time, remember an idea never shared is an idea never appreciated.