let's start in the east with michael bartley. is it the big issue?us a quick picture of the economy in your state. >> judy, great to be with you again. there's no question on this labor day the principal preoccupation is the economy. look, you know, in mid-term election is coming up. socialist, you don't hear about them. pennsylvania's unemployment rate is a tad lower than the national rate. but it doesn't matter. and, look, i think pennsylvania is realistic about this as well. the economy doesn't stop, these issues don't stop at the pennsylvania border. and start up again in ohio. there's no border here. so this, you know, national miss re, whatever you want to call it, people are looking for answers. people, you know, i don't think they're concentrating just yet on mid-term elections. the principal deal here is the economy. i think, you know, there's this general feeling that the government, you know, in washington, the federal government just doesn't have the answers. yes, absolutely no question here in pennsylvania from pittsburgh out east to phi

>> reporter: bartley thinks the money will come back into the community.he stimulus package will create 40 short term and 25 full time jobs. and perhaps attract others. if you're going to attract some industries, one of the things people want to know, well, how are my employees going to get to my job site? transportation is that link. and since low wage workers on average spend at least 40% of their income on car, gas and maintenance, she says they could save money taking the bus. peggy polk is a cook at a local diner. so, if you didn't have this service, what would you do? >> oh, my goodness. if i didn't have it what would i do? i would probably have to get a used car, and probably have trouble with it, and end up not going to work half the time. because, you know how dependable used cars are. >> reporter: to make this new venture a success, natchez transit is counting on hundreds more people to choose to leave their cars behind and start taking busses. >> are we going to change that overnight? no, but how we change it by one person at a time providing ex

love them. >> reporter: bartley believes he has a 36-inch waist.e that some jeans seem to suggest that he's even more slender than that. >> 34, very tight. 35, little snug. 36, little loose. >> reporter: feeling good about all that extra room, we took four pairs of size 36 jeans to >> natural gas explosion, abc 7's mark matthews is at this news conference at the bay hill shopping center. mark, it's about to get underway. >> yeah, just a couple minutes from now the acting governor is going to be talking to reporters here along with leland who is here and the mayor of san bruno, we're told the city manager will be here as well as the public information officer from the san bruno fire department. we expect the fire chief to be here. i'm told this will happen any moment. the lieutenant governor is already here and along with the other city officials they're garthing i guess behind this red cross disaster services truck waiting for everyone to gather and come and talk to us. we have been watching fire crews and trucks move up the road to the fire area.