Today Sound Transit announced that instead of ever finding a way to make sure escalators at the Capitol Hill Light Rail station work at least half of the time, the transit authority would officially rename them the Mitch Hedberg Memorial Temporary Stairs.
“As of today, these escalators are no longer broken, no longer a waste of millions of dollars, no longer an embarrassment to a part of the country that takes pride in its engineering chops. In fact, according to the late winner of the 1997 Seattle Comedy Competition Mitch Hedberg, they never were never broken to begin with,” said Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. “From now on, they are permanently temporarily stairs. Knowing our track record with fixing broken escalators, we probably should have just named them that from Day 1 – sorry for the convenience.”
Following the announcement, Sound Transit urged the people of Seattle to take a page from the comedian’s book and find a positive in the ridiculously expensive engineering failure.
“Mitch had a way of finding a bright side in life’s absurdities, like how we poured millions of dollars into some really expensive stairs that we can’t even use,” Rogoff said. “But instead of dwelling on this, the City of Seattle should move forward, because that’s the direction your shoes are pointing. If you’re going backwards, you should probably check to see if you put your shoes on the wrong way.”
The City of Seattle later announced that to note the rapidly eroding credibility of the once dependable West Seattle Bridge, the structure would be named after Dave Chappelle.
