Even as you read this, the Strategic...

Even as you read this, the Strategic Highway Research Program is under way, trying to find ways to make pavement more durable (apart from the obvious solution of reducing traffic).

At 37 sites in California, and nearly 1,000 across the nation, roadways are being pummeled by weights of up to 14,000 pounds while a Falling Weight Deflectometer measures the effect (didn’t the wacky scientist in “Back to the Future” have a Deflectometer?).

The pieces of concrete are then removed and sent to a Phoenix lab. Caltrans says a report is due out in 1997. Talk about a long autopsy.

And how many sites are being examined in the L.A. area, the world driving capital?

One.

Is it on the world’s busiest thoroughfare, the Santa Monica Freeway? On the Santa Ana? On the Ventura? No, no, and no. The lightly traveled Glendale Freeway was sampled this week.

A Caltrans spokesman admitted that one reason the Glendale was chosen was because “our Traffic Operations people would not allow a prolonged traffic lane closure on some of the heavily traveled lanes elsewhere.”

In other words, it appears that traffic is too heavy on some stretches of pavement here to test the effects of the traffic on that pavement.

You know how it is when a piece of real estate goes on the market: The place may have been a mess a few days earlier, but now it’s patched, painted, and cleaned, with perhaps a few flowers added.

For a stunningly different approach, there’s the 91-year-old, one-time County Engineers Building at 108 W. 2nd St.

Signs recently popped up indicating that the once-graceful, 10-story structure--boarded up for more than a decade--was available for leasing.

But it’s in no danger of shedding its unofficial title as Filthiest Building in the Civic Center.

The entrances are still strewn with trash. The sooty exterior is covered with graffiti at street level, with numerous broken windows on the upper floors.

Contacted by The Times, the real estate company listed on the building’s signs says it no longer represents the owners. Naturally, no one’s bothered to take down the signs.

Wells Fargo, however, has taken down its meaningless “GO” logo, which was pasted on the east side of its Grand Avenue building while officials tried to decide whether they liked the style of gold-leaf lettering.

Meanwhile, the concept of test signage could be catching on elsewhere. The first two letters of another institution’s branch in Arcadia were dark the other night, creating a sign that said:

EAT WESTERN BANK.

Is it another one of those special features in the troubled savings and loan industry that are designed to attract customers--a bistro, perhaps?

“I hope that the enclosed will put to rest the controversy,” writes Michael O’Brien, who sent along a Kay Kayser recording of Santa Monica’s most famous song.

It confirms Joe Brito’s recollection that the correct title is “When Veronica Plays Her Harmonica Down on the Pier at Santa Monica” (not “on the Beach . . .”).

Santa Monica, which recently discovered to its shock that it had no official song, will be hard-pressed to find another that can match such lyrics as: “ The seals and haddock get acrobatic when she plays on her chromatic . . . .”

Lorraine Sosa of West Hollywood also writes to note that on her 78 recording of “Veronica,” the “other side is ‘Eh-Eh-Eh-Eh-Eh-Eh--That’s the Woody Woodpecker Song.’ ”

The latter tune, of course, reveals why the end of Santa Monica Pier broke off a few years ago.