A wag with whom I regularly converse took congenial issue with my use of the word “addlepated” in my Sept. 22 “At Large” to describe those seeking to turn the Strip District’s Penn Avenue into Gridlock Way – restricting it to one vehicular lane of traffic and a funky curb-side bike lane with parking in between.
“I had to look up the definition of that one,” he wrote in an email later that day. “I dug down a couple of layers to ‘addle’ and got to the root of the issue.
“Notice that in addition to being confused, which I submit that they are not, there is also this definition of ‘rotten, as an egg,’ which I believe is more applicable.”
Continued my correspondent:
“The folks at the DOMI [Department of Mobility and Infrastructure] are not confused, they are very focused on degrading the mobility of the populus. Their main ambition is to pry the citizenry out of the greatest means of individual mobility yet devised, by any questionable means necessary.
“That leaves us with the second definition, ‘rotten,’ which I believe is closer to defining the actual situation. To wit, you would think that the people of [DOMI] would be focused on maintaining the infrastructure to facilitate mobility. However, they see their mission as one of preventing mobility, by creating as many obstacles as possible to impede the safe and orderly flow of traffic.
“In this regard, their mission to create traffic paralysis is a rotten joke foisted upon the dwindling number of commuters in this city.”
Concluded my faithful correspondent:
“They are, in fact, proud of their accomplishments, which would also imply that there has been a deterioration of their mental faculties to the level of rot.”
Indeed, this is a strident assessment of what’s happening on the ground on Penn Avenue in the Strip. But is it too strident? Not to those who’ve been battling a governmental insanity that threatens their very futures.
It was Theodore Roosevelt who once noted that “behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”
This is what in too many instances Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure has become. And that’s certainly not sound public policy.
Or as Jake Haulk, president-emeritus of the Allegheny Institute, characterizes it, in general and specifically for this DOMI abomination:
“The only cure for the thought processes that dictate policy in Pittsburgh is a voter transplant,” the Ph.D. economist opines. “Wedded to unions, socialism and harebrained stubbornness, Pittsburgh fritters away valuable potential positives: the universities, hospitals and foundations — the legacy of a prosperous past. Of course, one could argue that the universities are also a seedbed of counterproductive policies,” he notes parenthetically.
“Alas, the mindless drivel from planners reaching for some magic bullet is de rigueur in those precincts,” Haulk laments. “There is no known cure for this ailment other than the ravages of time.”
Again, strident words. But necessary stridency to deliver the hard, cold truth.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
