Safety Hazard

An arson fire destroyed the office area and a truckload of used tires early yesterday at a tire-recycling center here that the state wants to shut down as a safety hazard and a threat to rail traffic on Amtrak's northeast corridor. Fire Marshal Ray Forestal credited quick action by firefighters with averting "a real tragedy" that could have shut down all passenger traffic between Philadelphia and New York City in fighting the 12:03 a.m. fire at Wendy Lynn Tire Recycling, 400 Old Bristol Pike.

Armed with a court order and brandishing flashlights, borough officials entered a dark, dank house here Thursday afternoon. It wasn't drugs or guns they were looking for. It was roaches and trash. They found a few of the former and a lot - a lot - of the latter as they crept through the two-story twin house at 304 Evergreen Ave. With them were neighbors, a health inspector from the Camden County Health Department and a property manager for Realty Services Inc., the real estate agent that cares for the outside of the property for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Maureen Greene has spent most of her 36 years living near Northeast Philadelphia Airport, but it wasn't until she moved farther away that the airplane noise started bothering her. That was four years ago, when she and her family moved from Modena Park to a home near Bustleton Avenue and Lott Street - and found themselves living beneath a flight path for many of the small prop planes that use one of the airfield's two runways. "I would call the (control) tower, and they would say planes don't make noise," Greene recalled.

Sometime this fall - for the first time in 11 years - a freight train pulling from 10 to 25 cars will rumble down a 10-mile stretch of track linking Norristown and Lansdale. It will blast its horn four times at each railroad crossing - twice long and twice short. It will travel from 5 to 10 miles per hour. The rejuvenation of that track, the Stony Creek line, will, proponents say, allow businesses to grow, create jobs and reduce truck traffic. But others - including Whitpain Township's Police Chief Joseph Stemple, some township officials and about 100 residents - are concerned that bringing the tracks back to life will pose a public safety hazard.

Commuters beware: Don't stop to smell the flowers. And don't even think about picking them. Motorists along Interstate 95, the Schuylkill Expressway and Route 202 who stop to pick wildflowers along the highways face fines of up to $300 for picking vegetation within a state right-of-way, plus additional fines for stopping along a state highway. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation didn't intend to create a safety hazard when it planted the wildflowers on five acres in the Philadelphia area last year.

Haverford school officials are trying to figure out the right steps to take about steps that face the wrong way. For starters, they have taken aim at the wallets of the people who designed and built the steps. The stairway in question leads up to the front door of the Oakmont Elementary School. It was rebuilt this year as part of a project to correct water leaks into the school. Parents and school officials had considered the old steps a safety hazard, since they led directly into the semicircular drive in front of the school.

It was a typical springtime scene of suburbia - a backyard barbecue with steaks, corn on the cob and hamburgers on the grill. Then with a sound that Jill Kail likened to a shotgun blast, the window of her new gas grill blew out, showering glass in a five-foot radius on the patio. Kail, who was poised to turn over the meat, jumped back and was not hurt. Kail, a lawyer who lives in Cherry Hill, called the company to report the mishap, and was surprised to learn that officials were aware of the potential problem.

A request for a variance to allow the construction of a sign closer to another sign than allowed by law was granted to the Mister Donut franchise on Eagle Road in Haverford by the township zoning hearing board. The board voted 3-0 Thursday night to approve an application submitted by John Weeks, an engineer for Mister Donut of America Inc., to construct an elevated sign. Weeks said the sign would be about 45 feet from signs on abutting properties. Township zoning laws require 100 feet between signs.

A request for a special exception to build a house on the corner of Glenwood Road and Barnes Avenue has been opposed by neighbors, who said they feared that the house would obstruct the view of drivers and children riding their bicycles. Barry Frieberg, of the 200 block of Glenwood Road, said Thursday night at an Upper Merion Township Zoning Hearing Board meeting that the proposed two- story house represented a safety hazard to neighborhood children and could lead to more construction in the area.