gigachad
Sure sure sure, but did the government make any profit from doing this?
if this about cars, only the most libertarian would question, if we’re talking about trains tho…
Business owners whose vehicles now need less repair and maintenance: “This is unacceptable“
There’s a corner gas episode where the small town gets upset after a pothole is filled because it helps reduce the speed of traffic and a speed bump is too fancy
The movie blew my fucking mind…
They were a couple a whole time? 🤣🤣
Dude spoilers!
it’s been over a decade since I’ve seen any of that show and I can picture a whole bunch of scenes from that episode in my head
not because I actually remember them, just because the characters and plot are that identifiable
good show
An incredible pull, but hell yea I see you.
“Garmin GPS announces next update to bring back missing potholes by playing bang.mp3 without any user input destination needed…”
But it was the sound of that specific pothole! How else am I gonna know which pothole is which? Please send help, I’ve been lost in traffic for 4 hours!
Suspension and tire shops across NYC are sobbing
Car infrastructure doesn’t need to make a profit don’t you know? Its just public transport that needs be a net gain for the city
Ah, you must be one of those people that needs posts to end in “/s” to get the joke.
Haha I think you might be the person who needs the /s. I was just continuing the sarcasm but making an adjacent sarcastic point
I don’t need the
/sI need the
dIf this comment is implying an /s then you got me lol
no, you can see it right there at the end: an
/s/s
I’m just trying to fit in.
I know you’re joking, but it is so depressing that this is EXACTLY how so many government officials think and how so many constituents have been brainwashed to think.
and, equally if not more depressingly, governments can make waaay more money by TAXING THE FUCKING RICH!
The typical conservative response to that is “but then they’ll take their businesses elsewhere and now you get nothing.”
The typical conservative response also fails to even consider just how difficult, expensive, and risky it is to move a large business to an entirely new region. Real estate has to be purchased and sold, employees have to be relocated or replaced, logistics have to be established in the new region, valuable business connections and contracts will have to be severed, and for brick and mortar businesses, the competitive landscape will be different.
Also, New York is a market of 5+ million people. They won’t ignore that because of high taxes.
Fucking socialist, wasting money on things people need.
Who’s going to pay the workers to put the pothokes back?
Or also did 20 diff pockets get filled as well??
You can tell it’s a pothole by the way it is
I need more of this guy. This and the snow is all I heard.
Did they do right or just drop some loose asphalt in them and pat it a couple of times with a shovel?
New campaign slogan:
Zohran, he’ll fill all your holes.
You thought Trump’s weird enthusiasm for the guy couldn’t get weirder. Just wait.
I wish those movies were still funny today. They were so great in their time.
They aged terribly
I’m so glad someone finally had the bravery and moral courage to take on the scourge of…Austin Powers movies. Truly this is the cause of our time.
Can you share examples?
I don’t remotely remember the one i saw.
Well, just off the top of my head, from very old memories, there’s tons of sexual assault. Also lots of making fun of fat people and people with different bodies in general. I’m sure there’s a lot more.
I wonder what will be considered horrible in 5-10 years from now? What awful thing we are doing now that we are unaware of?
I’m afraid in 5-10 years, the pendulum might swing back to jokes like “How many Jews fit in a Volkswagen?”
Sexual assault like this?
Someone else mentioned that it’s actually pretty consensual. I assumed it wasn’t, but I guess I must be wrong. Again, it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen them. I know that consent wasn’t the big talking point then that it is now, so I just thought they’d have fucked it up. It’s good to see they didn’t totally.
Yeah, it’s pretty nice for 1997.
There’s also the fact that half the ‘jokes’ were just a scene going on longer than you’d expect.
I think a lot of the body shaming jokes don’t land not because we are uptight PC wokies, but because when you don’t stigmatise something, it loses its social power. Oh that person has a mole? So what? The boomer humour was ‘oh, it’s bad to have a mole, but you should never say anything about it!’ when you don’t believe either of those statements there is no joke, and the scene goes on for like 5 minutes…
Isn’t the whole point that it’s riffing off the sexual misconduct in the bond movies? Also, Its been a while, but I recall Austin always being overtly consensual as a contrast to the Bond series
Yes, that’s the satire. Which is lost on folks who did not grow up with the old bond movies, instead tossing it in the “boomer humor” category without understanding that the reason it was funny to the last generation was because it played off stuff from the previous generation.
Time moves on. Like a poster above us said, the movies aged badly because the comedy isn’t timeless, say like Who’s On First.
Yeah, agreed on all counts 😕
I find the first one aged better than the rest. I still laughed out loud after watching it recently. The later movies, not so much.
Agree, the first one has aged like fine milk (opinions differ of if its spoiled or turned to cheese) and the opening bit of the second film where they had a real budget for a split second.
The part there thats aged well is of all the actors cast in the parody opening, Danny Devito is the only one who isnt problamatic.
Zohran the Hole Destroyer.
What a wonderful metric to measure how a mayor or prime minister is working. If the streets are full of potholes, you have a bad government. If the streets are paved with smooth asphalt without a single hole for your precious car burning expensive gasoline to fall in, then they’re doing some very good work. The economy and potholes. That’s the most important things.
Bikes and buses use streets, too.
Wheelchairs, scooters… lots of things that aren’t cars have wheels and may need to cross the road at some point!
What’s Johney-5 up to these days?
/s ?
They’re not even really using it as a metric. They’re just staying a fact and you’re getting all worked up over nothing. The article even mentioned an electric scooter rider who died after they got launched off their vehicle after they hit a pothole: this could have easily happened to a cyclist.
This is “rape whistles shouldn’t need to exist” logic. I know you’re in your own little universe where you could just Infinity Gauntlet snap and there’d be no more cars in NYC, but in the world we actually live in, he’s helping.
You’re right, it is a wonderful metric! The metric boils down to “public servant uses public money to improve the lives of the public.” The same can be said for all public services: parks, playgrounds, healthcare, inspection and maintenance, just to name a few.
Contrary to what seems to be a widely held opinion in the US the government should not be a for-profit enterprise, rather an entity entrusted with spending public money (i.e. taxes) for the good of the public, and on things no private company would bother with as there is no expected return on investment other than “making people healthier and happier”. Healthy, happy people are more likely to contribute and be more productive, which in turn raises more taxes and so the cycle continues. So yes, fixing potholes is a great start, well spotted.
The point is that Mamdami is actually doing what his constituents have been asking. If you want to put a negative spin on it, at least make it about how low the bar is instead of this insufferable interpretation of the situation
Kier Starmer would never fill a pothole! The same was said about the previous progressive mayor of my city. She and the party pushed very hard for bike paths everywhere. And we got them. But conservatives and people not from the city were whining because somehow, there were still potholes in the city.
I maintain it’s a stupid metric.
Ok well carry on finding the negative in every shred of positive news then
Cars are objectively bad for the environment, for planning, for space, for human community and sociability. There’s a lot to criticize about cars
It kind of shows the priorities? Your infrastructure will be fine for a few years if you do no maintenance. After that, it’s downhill. If you are investing in maintaining it, you show that you have the longterm interests of the population in mind instead of some shortterm things that might help you during your short term
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall . . .
Should’ve used rats to fill them in. .
Boom, two birds, one stone.
I should be mayor. Amateurs.
You wanna get 2 birds stoned at once?
You talkin bout Pigeons?
Sounds like a waste of good drugs
Yeah they can use the pothole debris to kill all the pigeons. Pay attention.
Turns out you can improve both public transit and driving! It was sort of being implied by haters that driving was going to get way worse under him IIRC.
I mean I know he’s a ladies man, but seriously, 8000 in a day? Hats off, Mamdani. Don’t forget the electrolyte drinks.
All it took was one single governor not being a sociopath.
Mind blowing!
What is meaningful, not what is expedient, is most important.
This is really not impressive, nyc roads suck and patching them is mediocre work many do for press releases. I dont care about cars.
Bikes make no damage to roads, vehicles make infinite damage to roads. Tco car infrastructure is so 1950s.
Get schools better, balance that 25billion dollar deficit, feed and love the poor, work on the infrastructure of water…those are lasting impacts that matter.
You ever hit a pothole on a bike because it looked like a little water and you didn’t want to go further into traffic? Definitely a painful and potentially expensive experience.
Yeah, big shit needs to be accomplished but these initiatives compound and get the public behind fixing stuff and making life a little better. Would I like to see empty rentals be taxed at 2-5x the rate of occupied dwellings, fuck yes, will it happen soon, probably not.
Ps i ride a surly long haul trucker and I very rarely hit potholes, because bikes can dodge a lot of them w/out dramatic movement. Bikes rule!
NYC has bike lanes which have waaaay less pot holes…and too many double parked cars.
Personally, I think cities are a complete blight upon the Earth, I’d actually only be happy if he was reclaiming the city for nature and getting all of those people off that previously beautiful land.
But, I suppose people do have different views on what’s good.
Blight compared to what? Moving the people to the suburbs or killing all the people? Cities are much better for the environment than equally populous suburbs or exurbs.
I think potholes are way more meaningful to bicycles, scooters, and motorcycles than cars from a usability standpoint
I get the sentiment, but we don’t have much in terms of hope in our government/politicians these days. Hopefully this is just a stepping stone.
Ty for the reply. Hope is powerful.
Ive just seen this same press release from mayors nationwide a dozen times…because im old.
What about the busses?
Potheads in shambles
I mean, I do legitimately wonder how he did this when other administrations didn’t or couldn’t. Would like an insider perspective. Like, did he just pay tons and tons of OT? Did he order the potholes filled quickly, even if they didn’t meet the normal standard for quality? Did he crack the whip and say “fuck your union rules!” Or were past administrations just this corrupt/lazy/incompetent?
I’m sure his fanboys will say “obviously it’s the last one - he’s not a corrupt capitalist pig”, or something. And I’m open to that explaination. But I’d like, yaknow, some actual statements from people who were actually involved.
I mean, I do legitimately wonder how he did this when other administrations didn’t or couldn’t.
I suspect the article is overselling it (the comparison, not the raw pothole number), and they don’t source basically anything they’re saying, so it’s hard to definitively call them on that. NYC had a winter that created an abnormal number of potholes, and this article (using an uncited figure) says: “the same number that would usually take New York’s Department of Transport (DOT) a week.” But is that for filling potholes directly after winter? Is it for the average rate of potholes per week averaged across the year (which would be a completely invalid comparison)? I guess I could try digging it up, but Novara Media clearly didn’t give enough of a shit when they said it.
I think it’s cool regardless.
Donate one hour’s wage per month—or whatever you can afford—today.
Dunno, Novara; maybe when you decide to learn how hyperlinks work.
I appreciate your thoroughness!
Oh, this is not thorough. But I appreciate your appreciation.
Since Mayor Mamdani took office, NYC DOT has fixed more than 50,000 potholes, with an average response time of around two days. Additional pothole blitzes are planned for later this spring. NYC DOT will resurface 1,150 miles of roadway this year, ensuring our streets remain safe for all New Yorkers.
Daaaaaamn. That is some actual work being done. And all it took was electing a socialist. Let that be the lesson.
Here’s a press release from the piece of shit who was in office previously, Eric Adams, celebrating the 500,000th filled pothole of his tenure. Mamdani assumed office January 1, so at 82 days, he’s advertising ~610 potholes fixed per day in a winter that’s produced an abnormally high amount of potholes.
Adams’ press released was published January 29, 2025, and he assumed office January 1, 2022, or 1124 days. This means Adams was advertising ~445 potholes filled per day, which is 73% the amount Mamdani advertises here. Once you account for the fact that Adams’ average was across three years rather than just “from the middle of winter to spring” – meaning that on average there were fewer potholes available to fix per day than Mamdani’s timespan – the difference, while not exactly clear, is negligible. Even accounting for the fact that Mamdani just assumed office and may have some inertia, these aren’t even close to earth-shaking numbers.
You can also see that this kind of pothole dick-measuring contest is extremely typical for NYC mayors – and god, fuck Erick Adams. If I wouldn’t slobber Adams for basically these same numbers, I’m not going to slobber Mamdani either.
Edit: Something else I totally forgot to address is response time; per the Adams press release (I’m taking it uncritically, but I’m also taking the Mamdani PR uncritically; sue me):
New pothole complaints to 311 are closed in an average of approximately 1.8 days — more than a full day faster than the de Blasio administration’s average of 3.4 days and more than twice as fast as Bloomberg administration’s average of 4.4 days.
Meanwhile, Mamdani’s press release states:
NYC DOT has fixed more than 50,000 potholes, with an average response time of around two days. [I’ll assume this is response to a 311 complaint.]
And just like before, the difference in the nature of their tenure means I can’t in good faith give Adams the point based on the raw number; obviously the average response time across three years with four seasons each could have fewer hurdles on average than “middle of winter to spring”, where everything’s cold as fuck and frozen and snowing.
I appreciate you sitting through all of this for our benefit :)
I wanna see mamdani be successful but I’m wary of putting politicians up on a pedestal as our saviors and hope, as I’m learning from my elder leftists that thats gone wrong a lot of times before 😅
Still rooting for him though :)
Okay, makes sense; from the press release:
“NYC DOT crews stepped up yesterday to fill almost a week’s worth of potholes in a single day,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Flynn. “Now that the streets have thawed from a historic winter, we’ve ramped up our pothole-filling efforts and are beginning to fully repave streets across the five boroughs. This year, we’ll repave more than 1,100 lane miles of streets — the best way to help ensure our streets are safe and smooth for all New Yorkers.”
Left with no other data (I’m not thrilled Novara treated this press release totally uncritically), I’m forced to assume they mean “average potholes per week per year”, which is a completely bullshit metric to compare against that you’d only use as an empty boast. A day with just under 7x the efficiency of an average day of the year isn’t all that exceptional when the day is a spring thaw right after a winter that made an exceptional amount of potholes. Pothole filling is not and will never be even close to evenly distributed.
It’s still very good to be taking care of potholes, but Novara seemingly took a standard press release about fixing potholes and turned it into how Mamdani is revolutionizing NYC.
All that aside: what are your thoughts on the article seemingly fabricating a quote from The New York Times?
It’s right here.
When you’re trying to find a quote, try wrapping the literal quoted text in quotation marks and searching to get exact matches: https://www.google.com/search?q=“long+ignored+street+improvements+–+the+kind+of+meat-and-potatoes+issue+that+some+previous+mayors+have+struggled+to+deliver+on”
Oh, thanks! I did search it in quotes. It just didn’t show up for some reason. I guess Bing just doesn’t like this one for some reason (an example substring I chose):
Super my bad. Amended my comments. Very heavily appreciated. I should’ve tried another search engine to be safe.
It’s possible they’re all fresh new potholes. The reason there’s more of them is the trend from cars to SUVs.
The first part makes sense. But I think an especially harsh winter would be more the culprit than SUVs. Not that they don’t cause more damage - but the number of SUVs in a city doesnt double in a single year and cause a noticeable increase in potholes. We would expect a gradual increase in pothole development that would only be noticeable with statistical analysis over several uyears.
You’re totally right. I didn’t know it was such a big jump. I assumed this was one of those cases where every administration gets to claim something is the “biggest ever” because the thing they’re bragging about tends to grow steadily with population and/or inflation.
He’s got John Henry on the payroll.
The question is, how many potholes do they usually fill in a day? For all we know they fill 8000 potholes every spring, but just don’t advertise it. That being said, letting the people know what you do for them is important.
1/5 that or so, based on the article
local government does its job
“But how is that even possible?”
I mean, my question was how it managed to do its job better than previous administrations.
Analysis elsewhere in the thread appears to indicate that none of my hypotheses were actually the most likely scenario. Instead, (and I’m embarassed I didn’t think of this) the most obvious hypothesis is that the DOT is filling potholes at a completely normal rate, and there are just a lot of potholes available to fill. They are comparing filling potholes on the pothole-filling-est day of the year after a harsh winter, versus an average week after average winters in previous administrations.
So, as always, the null hypothesis when a politician says something should be “it’s spin”
But I’d like, yaknow, some actual statements from people who were actually involved.
He said, asking on Lemmy, where none of those people are likely to exist.
Sure. But a future article or other news source or maybe a former mayor’s aide’s twitter account might have more info, and maybe someone here knows about that
Im just gonna leave this here
