Yesterday we ranted calmly discussed the issue of improperly-placed (as in violating federal regulations) road construction signs. Work toward remedying this unrelenting problem has also been taken up by Better Burque’s more militant roadway safety arm, the Better Burque Tactical Urbanism Team (BBTUT).

No, there are no BBTUT badges or other insignia yet. We could use some help with that.

This work is centered on taking photos of sign placed in violation of federal regs, followed by posting them in the City’s 311/”SeeClickFix” system to be documented and, hopefully, fixed. The posting and documenting is going well. The fixing is very much still work-in-progress.

Here’s an example:

The scene above was related to 311/SeeClickFix on August 10th. What followed, as is almost always the case, is/was a long series of correspondence between BBTUT and nameless/faceless bureaucrats working in various bowels of city government. One imagines them in various underground bunkers, armed with Microsoft Surface tablets and surrounded by sand bags.

In keeping with the visual analogy, it also appears these bureaucrats have developed an uncrackable BBTUT cryptologists are still working on an Enigma Machine capable of deciphering code such as expressed in the following exchange somewhere in the middle of about 50 messages back and forth:

Our crack cryptologists have cracked some code: For example, “resolved” means “we’re done with trying to solve the problem and can’t,” and “case X has been completed by the City’s Planning Department” means “nothing has been/will be done and the Planning Department should be scapegoated as the reason.”

Phrases such as “Notes: It’s an orange construction sign” are stilly a mystery to us.

Maybe “orange” in the above indicates reference to existential philosopher Edmund Husserl’s work on color in “color phenomenology.” Perhaps the green-helmeted bureaucrat surrounded in the bunker by sand bags and concertina wire is expressing the concept that “reality” and “color” in our environment is only the scientific process of transferring photons to the eye. But we wouldn’t know because epistemology class was really hard and we barely made a B in the class (and that only after doing some extra credit).

In short, we’re still working on “Notes: It’s an orange construction sign.” And we’re still working on those improperly-placed construction signs. Now that I think about it, there’s definitely a Satrean (“No Exit”), and/or Quixotic, element in such an endeavor. Or Sisyphean.

Yeah, something like that. But with sandbags.