Back in the 1960s, McDonald’s was considering ditching its iconic golden arches. That was until a psychologist named Louis Cheskin convinced them to keep them after explaining to company executives that the arches were, “a powerful Freudian symbol.” Describing them as “mother McDonald’s breasts,” he argued the large golden arches reminded people of a welcoming motherly bosom, subconsciously drawing customers into their warm embrace, and thus, into the restaurant.
Can the same be said of Pelham’s infamous arches? Hardly. Very much the opposite, as far as I can tell.
Rather than subconsciously drawing me in, the Pelham arches very consciously drive me away. And if there’s a mild-to-medium strength breeze out there, best believe I’m keeping myself far, far away from those architectural death traps.
I guess it’s worth noting here that the Town insists the arches are not a death trap, but rather are designed, “in accordance with Part 4 of the Ontario Building Code [which] requires a 1-in-50-year wind pressure with additional loading factors for location and wind gusts.” Ah, very comforting.
My confidence in the structural safety of something is always put at ease by a very carefully worded statement riddled with legalese.
If you want the whole sordid tale of what’s going on with the arches, we’ve got you covered with stories here, here, here, and most recently, this week, right here. The latest scuttlebutt is that Town staff are removing the cladding around them in a bid to make them less likely to catch the wind and go flying off through someone’s window or decapitating a passing pedestrian.
I know some people like to whinge about the cost of the arches … which is exactly what I’m going to do also. And look, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t look like these dumb things are actually bankrupting the Town. A few thousand here, a couple thousand there, ultimately, it’s not that much wasted money, especially if you look at the Town’s Sunshine List and see how much is being wasted there (zing!) by comparison.
My issue is that the Town is being silly by dumping even a single penny more into these things. You have to know when to cut your losses. Don’t get sucked into “the sunk cost fallacy” that all too often tricks otherwise smart people into making bad decisions.
When the arches got blown down by a windstorm six years ago, that should have been a sign that they were a bad idea. The first time these new arches needed repair work they should have been been tossed in the back of a truck and hauled straight to the scrap metal recyclers, and the money they got from that should have been used to fix some potholes.
Beyond the direct and ongoing cost and liability associated with the arches, one thing that often gets overlooked is the labour burden to the Town. Town workers are out there this week fiddling around with them once again. Every minute spent on those arches is a minute not spent fixing a pipe or filling a pothole; things that actually matter.
As bad as they are, Pelham’s awful arches are only the second worst arches in Niagara, if you can believe that. The worst arches by far are the ones towering over the Burgoyne Bridge in St. Catharines. The $54 million bridge project went $37 million over budget, in part because of those big-ass arches, which, as it turned out, were entirely unnecessary. Looking at the Burgoyne Bridge, you could be forgiven for thinking the big arch over the top is part of the suspension system, but it’s not—the whole thing is fake, it’s not a suspension bridge, it’s just a regular old bridge with a giant, decorative arch bolted on top that is designed to make it look like a suspension bridge. The “cables” from the arches don’t hold any weight, they don’t do anything except add millions of dollars to the cost of the bridge. Niagara’s worst arches by far.
Which means the Burgoyne Bridge arches and the Pelham arches have two key things in common: both are a waste of money, and both are completely… pointless.
Get it, because arches are parabolic curves and don’t have any points? Ending on a geometry pun, always a smart move.
James Culic loves his mathematics, even though they tend to leave people a bit… divided. Find out how to yell at him personally at the bottom of this page, or add a reader comment, or craft your own archly worded riposte in a letter to the editor.
