Department of Transportation Admits: “We Have No Idea How Any of This Still Works”
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat investigate NYC’s infrastructure, which has apparently been running on nothing but optimism and resentment for decades.
The Maintenance Admission
A Department of Transportation official held a press conference where he admitted something genuinely shocking: the city doesn’t actually maintain infrastructure anymore. Things just… work. Until they don’t. When they don’t, the city delays fixing them until nobody remembers they were supposed to be fixed.
The New York Times investigated and found that NYC’s infrastructure maintenance budget hasn’t been updated since 2003. Inflation has multiplied costs by a factor of 3. The budget has stayed the same. Result: infrastructure is crumbling, and the city’s plan is to ignore it until it’s someone else’s problem.
The Bridge Situation
New York Post documented NYC’s bridges, many of which are officially rated as “not ideal for driving across.” Several are held together by rust and prayer. The solution: they’re fine until someone crashes through them.
The Pothole Pandemic
New York Daily News counted NYC potholes. The city reported: approximately 150,000. The actual number: probably closer to 2 million. Each pothole is a small catastrophe waiting to happen. The city’s response: “Drive carefully.”
The Water Pipe Disaster
Gothamist investigated water pipes and found that many are 200+ years old. They leak constantly. Water is precious. The city’s solution: leak management. Accept that you lose 15% of water to leaks and move on.
The Sewer System
The City reported on NYC sewers, which are operating at 10x their design capacity. During heavy rain, sewage floods into the Hudson River. This is acknowledged and ignored. The city’s plan: hope for drought.
The Structural Integrity Question
“How is any of this still standing?” one engineer asked genuinely. “The infrastructure is maintained at a level that would get most cities’ officials arrested. But this is New York. We’ve just accepted that everything is held together by spite and the hope that nothing gets worse.”
The Repair Philosophy
NYC’s infrastructure repair philosophy is “let it fail completely, then replace it.” No preventative maintenance. No regular upkeep. Just let systems degrade until they catastrophically fail, then emergency-repair them while spending 3x what preventative maintenance would have cost.
For more satirical takes on governmental incompetence and infrastructure decay, visit The Onion and Babylon Bee for commentary on systems designed to fail catastrophically.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/