Any user who regularly uses Reddit will be the first to tell you that for all the information and knowledge available on the platform, sometimes opening a website or application is a ridiculously sad experience.

On Thursday night, a cyclist in Philadelphia shared a puzzling morbid photo on the Philadelphia Bike subreddit, in which the body of a mouse was painted by a temporary liner on Martin Luther King Avenue Painted.That photo Entered the Philadelphia subreddit And aroused considerable repercussions.

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, MLK Drive has been banning vehicles, a decision made by the city to promote social distancing for outdoor recreation. To the chagrin of cyclists and runners who like car-free sections, the road will reopen next month.

Before the change, the city had Complete maintenance and improvement Follow the nearly four-mile road from Eakins Oval to Falls Bridge, crossing the West Fairmount Park between the Schuylkill River and I-76. This work includes mitigating floods, installing new lighting equipment, and re-laying and marking the lines.

The Philadelphia Street Department said on Thursday that it was aware of the rat photos circulating on the Internet and was not satisfied with the contractor for the project.

A spokesperson said: “The contractor has been informed that this is unacceptable work and this misconduct will be properly resolved.” “When the contractor noticed the rat, they were completing temporary markings on a section of MLK’s lined truck. The mouse was removed before the permanent marking was applied. It seems that this photo was taken in a short period of time between the temporary markings. and the permanent marking. The street department takes this matter very seriously. The integrity of the urban roads And safety is the department’s top priority. It apologizes for the offensive nature of the photos.”

The street department did not provide the name of the contractor for the project, and the Office of Transportation, Infrastructure and Sustainable Development did not immediately respond to requests for more information.

Roadkill is the unfortunate reality of vehicular traffic. You hate to see it.

It is not clear how much the contractor knew about the rats and when the workers realized it. For the sake of accuracy, the machine is usually used for scribing in the dark. The staff may not realize what happened before the photo is taken, but the street department believes that the contractor should be more tidy on the project from start to finish, regardless of whether they know mice and continue to draw lines for efficiency.

If the cyclist does not notice the rats on the bicycle path, they or other people may be injured if they ride on it.Because someone took a photo Have done Please note that if a person sees a mouse during a pleasant bicycle ride, that is expected. I just want to say that after paying for a job in the city, it’s never a good thing to see a dead mouse painted on the road.

As for the bigger picture? The stark photography that kills animals in this way has a ridiculous way to amplify their importance, or on the other end of the spectrum, in the face of a very cruel Hobbesian world for all creatures, it brings out the weirdness of human beings. Disrespectful. This city undoubtedly has more pressing problems- Rat infestation It’s one of them-but it’s still possible, maybe it’s just a little bit about the lost soul, isn’t it?

In the best case, perhaps the rat is a sign and catalyst for a broader conversation about MLK Drive in the future. For the past 14 months, the Greater Philadelphia Cycling League and other organizations have been urging such discussions.

“Now is the time to do this,” Randy Lobasso, director of policy at the Cycling League Written in May, Looking forward to the future destruction of the region. “In the next three years, the restoration of MLK Drive Bridge will begin (this will take two years), and then Falls Bridge (it is estimated that it will take about a year). Even if MLK Drive completely returns to the way it was before the COVID Once the bridge construction starts, full traffic from one bridge to another will be restricted.”

Nature operates in mysterious ways. Let us hope that the demise of this mouse will bring positive and forward-looking thinking to MLK Drive in the next few years, because the opinions of many stakeholders may differ on what should be done.

“At this point, many of these people may have different views on the future of the road,” Lobasso wrote. “But they should all be heard and let the city propose configurations that are beneficial to them.”