Streetsblog San Francisco

In casting around for a good April Fool's Day joke, I found yesterday's New York Times Lede blog report on the chicken frying corporation KFC doing some pothole repair in Louisville, complete with this photo of Colonel Sanders in a hardhat and construction bib.  I thought for sure the Times had gotten an eight-hour jump on the April Fool's fun, but amazingly this report seems to be true.  Or they're holding out on a Joaquin-Phoenix-length punchline and haven't broken it to readers that this is preposterous.  The PETA subtext in the Times story is pretty funny, but I find this all a bit unsettling.

As KFC's press release from March 25th notes, the company gave Louisville $3,000 to fill the potholes on the condition that they could stencil their logo on the new asphalt.

For more than half a century, KFC has "filled up" its fans with the Colonel's world famous, freshly prepared fried chicken. Today, in a marketing first, KFC is celebrating its continued dedication to freshness by launching a pilot infrastructure renewal program, becoming the first-ever corporate sponsor of freshly filled up potholes in up to five major cities across the U.S.

Barf.  I know a lot of San Francisco streets are in a pretty awful way, but I pray Mayor Newsom has not taken the Colonel up on his offer to fix our potholes.  Can you imagine the new Mission Street Freshly-Filled by KFC?

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