Buffalo’s Peace Bridge ponders selling its soul to PETA
by Jeffery Racheff
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
At least that may be the case in Buffalo, New York, where the city’s Department of Transportation is looking for a way to come up with the necessary funds required to fix a bridge. A state audit has concluded the Peace Bridge, which connects Buffalo with Canada across Lake Erie, is in “deficient condition” and has serious deterioration and safety issues.
Enter PETA, which has an uncanny smell for publicity stunts. In a letter to the state of New York’s transportation commissioner, the animal rights organization has offered to fund the bridge repairs… on the condition its name be changed to “Peace on Your Plate Bridge.”
“The bridge’s new name would remind Buffalo residents that every time we sit down to eat, we make a choice,” says PETA vice-president Tracy Reiman. Not only would the city be reminding drivers of the morality of their diets, but, according to Reiman, vegetarian Buffalonians would weigh less and thus “help to lighten the bridge’s load.”
For New Yorkers, this may be too good of a deal to pass up. Sure, PETA is a wacky and controversial bunch, but their stunts are rarely more than just annoying to those who can’t stomach the gospel of tofurkey and soy nuggets. The proposed bridge name wouldn’t even have the group’s tag on it, so proud meat-eaters could always just hold their breaths or something when they cross—like when you drive past a cemetery. Even if they do accept the money and change the official name of the bridge, most people will probably continue to call it what they’ve called it their entire lives anyway. Maybe a few tourists might ask questions, but “Peace on Your Plate Bridge” is a bit of a mouthful.
Knowing PETA, they’re more likely to turn the bridge into some kind of horror show and depress the hell out of commuters. Pictures of shackled elephants and one-eyed puppies will hang from exit signs, while activists throw tomatoes at fishermen passing under the bridge.
That may sound far-fetched, but it’s not like PETA hasn’t pulled crazier stunts in the past. The group has been called everything from headline-hungry and tasteless, to absurd and downright insane, and is known as much for its stance against animal cruelty as it is for its half-shocking, half-absurd protests. Most recently, the organization suggested our nation’s weather-predicting groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, be replaced with a robot.
But hey, money’s money. And I’m guessing New Yorkers would be willing to swallow a whole lot of absurdity (even if it tastes like breaded, cruelty-free cardboard) as long as it saves them tax dollars.
And as always, just make sure you know who you’re dealing with. If wacky, controversial publicity stunts are your sponsor’s MO, you can’t say you’re surprised when you wake up to find your bridge covered in photos of dismembered chickens.
