[Pittsburgh, PA] Despite decades of hope that one day Pittsburgh’s major thoroughfares could all be fixed, the Liberty Bridge fire has apparently sent PennDOT over the edge.

“When the huge craters were finally fixed on the Oakland ramps to I-376, we really started to believe we could do this. But sadly we’re just not up to the task.”

While any rational analysis would have dictated throwing in the towel long ago, psychiatrists say PennDOT appeared to have been stuck in a denial loop for quite some time, allowing them to continue with their Sisyphean construction projects summer after summer.

“Often it’s easiest for us to continue along a doomed path even as the wiser parts of our brain are screaming at us that it’s foolhardy. It seems PennDOT is just as human as the rest of us.”

However the recent Liberty Bridge Fire appears to have been too high a dose of reality. PennDOT says it cannot delude itself any longer that its dream of Pittsburgh becoming a fully functional metropolis could ever come true.

“We just taking it one step at a time. Obviously we won’t be doing road repair ever again. It’s too painful and pointless.”

Regarding the effects of PennDOT’s complete psychological collapse, City Officials say that in the short and medium term, traffic problems will be magically solved due to the absence of construction and closures, while in the long term Pittsburgh is destined to become a medieval society ruled by Amish overlords from the north.