It turns out even municipalities have a sense of humor.
On Saturday, anyone going on the city of Hermiston website likely saw a message indicating the city was proposing cutting the number of traffic lanes on Highway 395 down from four to two. The message said “the Hermiston City Council will consider implementing ‘Extra-Wide Comfort Lanes’ on Highway 395 through town at its next meeting. The proposal will reduce the number of travel lanes from four to two to promote a more luxurious comfort cruise.”
However, the joke was on the reader because when you clicked on the link, it took you to the following message:
“The City Council IS NOT considering implementing “extra-wide comfort lanes” on Highway 395 through town, but thanks for playing along! Don’t forget to share with your friends, and encourage them to like our page on Facebook to keep up to date on real city news the other 364 days per year.”
The idea for the April Fool’s Day joke came from Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan and Executive Assistant Lilly Alacorn-Strong.
“It popped in to my head after I remembered an old Seinfeld episode where Kramer adopts a highway and decides to turn it from ‘four lanes of gridlock into a two-lane comfort cruise,’ by painting over the lines,” said Morgan.
Morgan said about 1,800 people clicked on the link, only to find out it was an April Fool’s Day joke.
“Definitely a higher click-through rate than our standard,” Morgan said. “This looks like it was easily our most highly interacted-with post. This just proves the obvious, if you want to generate a reaction, mention a change to Highway 395.”
