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u/Quick-Nick07 7h ago
Reminds me of the guy in LA who studied regulations for years to properly build a sign to indicate an hard to see exit at an intersection. It was perfect so they city let it stay up and now performs regular maintenance on it like with any other sign
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u/alexlongfur 6h ago
People mean well but usually those attempts at fixing infrastructure are really, really unsafe.
An example is that incident from, what, 10 years ago? Person put wooden stairs up an embankment, city tore it down after two days/weeks and public outcry was "what the heck he made it accessible! You monsters!", and concrete stairs were later put in.
Professionals pointed out all the OSHA violations the "helpful" stairs had, such as no rails, the wood wasn't weather treated iirc.
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u/Draco-REX 6h ago
One could argue that the act of building the stairs brought enough visibility to the issue that it made the city do what they should have done a long time before.
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u/alexlongfur 5h ago
That's a valid point. One argument made at the time was that maybe the city already knew about the spot and had a project slated for it
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u/sBucks24 5h ago
A) the definitely had plans slated because no municipal project gets approved this quickly
B) there was no plan slated but the city Councilers brother owns a concrete company and he saw an opportunity at two birds one stone
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u/SeenYourScene 6h ago
People always talk about red tape and regulation making it impossible to get things done.
No, red tape and regulation make sure things get done right. I love red tape and regulation. Corruption and negligence make it impossible to get things done or even break the rules of regulation to get them done wrong.
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u/ThePhysicistIsIn 5h ago
There is an optimal amount of red tale and regulation. There can be too much.
I work in a hospital. I’ve been involved in two “projects”. One involved running a data cable through the fake ceiling, down into another room. Took facilities several weeks and they charged us 3000$, when one of us could do it in 15 minutes.
Not an electric wire. No need to drill holes. Just, remove fake ceiling panel, put wire in, pull it in the next room, done.
We had a “renovation” where 2 feet of a counter were removed. These days we don’t have facilities do it - it’s handled by external contractors. They build a fake wall to protect the renovation area. 6 weeks. No idea how much it costs - tens of thousands of dollars if not hundreds.
There could be a little less red tape.
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u/CivicDutyCalls 4h ago
Often, every single step of the process is individually necessary or was originally well designed, based on some actual past error that this procedure prevents.
However, it was implemented in a vacuum with no consideration for the entire process lifecycle. Now the process takes longer and is disincentivizing well intent people from doing a thing that the government wants them to do (starting a business, building homes, etc).
Or the regulation is outdated and no longer serves the original purpose. The thing that it prevents is also now prevented by 3 additional processes that do the job better.
Many things are done sequentially that could be easily done in parallel.
Or when the regulation was originally implemented, it was well considered and placed appropriately in the process but other processes have been built around it that actually now result in that being the bottleneck. Or technology, data, or a change in understanding of risk have moved our ability to catch the deficiencies much earlier in the process than we used to be able to and so this would benefit from being replaced with a new procedure.
Or two different departments independently identified a risk and independently identified that they need to filter for it and both require separate requirements to fulfill the process, when instead it would be more efficient for them to collaborate on the requirements and have a single shared form that they use to validate that the checkpoint was reached.
Process engineering is an actual career path and too few companies and governments hire them, and when they do, they frequently drag their feet to implement their suggestions.
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u/Ash_After_Dark 5h ago
Regulation is like everything else good. It gets in the way sometimes but it sure does beat the alternative!
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u/SudsInfinite 1h ago
Red tape and regulations are only here because someone paid in blood. People always forget this. The reason every single OSHA rule exists is because someone out there got injured or worse without them in place. I would rather things take a year to be done if it means that it'll be done right and make sure no one's hurt because of a rush job
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u/TeriyakiHairPiece_ 5h ago
There is a break over point where the tape and regulation becomes detrimental to actually getting things done.
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u/WillyDAFISH 37m ago
yeah, I agree with this sentiment! But im also not opposed to going through and updating some of these regulations every few years to make sure it's right and still needed.
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u/Additional-Proof556 4h ago
Something is better than nothing and it got the actual responsible people moving
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u/momoburger-chan 4h ago
i agree. i work for the local government and i hate having to tell well meaning people over and over again to stop doing dumb shit and to go through the correct channels. like, im not a narc, but sometimes rules and shit exist for a reason.
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u/Usual_Willingness 3h ago
But this is a pot hole. Dirt and cold patch can fix it quickly until a proper fix can be done by the city.
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u/zero5activated 4h ago
Sure, but the government installed new safe stairs after the public was outraged. Before that, the government didn't have the money or people to build anything. I am pretty sure, that it was all according to the plan.
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u/no_usual_2493 6h ago edited 6h ago
There is someone called u/buffalopotholebandit who secretly fixes potholes with flare ✨ Not just where they are from in Buffalo NY but also travels to Ithaca NY, Burlington VT, etc
Huge hit locally
https://www.reddit.com/r/ithaca/comments/1ltxfg7/goodbye_ithaca_thanks_for_your_holes/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ithaca/comments/1wtekiu/3_more_holes_ill_be_back/
https://www.reddit.com/r/burlington/comments/1jbhysz/1st_pothole_filled_ill_be_here_all_week/
https://www.reddit.com/r/NewOrleans/comments/1sn3otn/goodbye_nola_thanks_for_your_holes/
https://www.reddit.com/user/BuffaloPotholeBandit/comments/1slmd11/meow/
I often misread the name as butthole bandit which is also fun
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u/BuffaloPotholeBandit 24m ago
If the city of Buffalo keeps trying me like they have lately I may need to start my villain arc and become the Poffalo Butthole Bandit
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u/boredBiologist0 45m ago
I'm fascinated by how the villain is just straight pouring cement into that pothole, there's no signs of a bottom, or the cement actually filling up the hole, just blackness. How long has this pothole gone unaddressed?
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u/ProjectKARYA 8h ago edited 8h ago
Obviously, the best way is to draw permanent genitalia around the
whole, so the city is forced to repair it all.