Pittsburgh's Newest Invasive Species
You’ve seen them around. They didn’t exist here a few years ago, but now they’re all over the place. If you don’t know what they are, you might think they look kinda cool. Really, they’re destroying our environment.
Pittsburgh’s newest invasive species has no natural predators. It destroys its competition, becoming all you see. It behaves unpredictably, darting around or stopping at the slightest disturbance. It sees in all directions. It tries to avoid people yet feeds on the systems we rely on. It flies around the city, destroying natural resources as it goes. It is not beholden to human control. Worst of all, it knows where you live.
Pittsburgh isn’t the first city overtaken by this pest, but it offers ideal conditions that enable the species to thrive. Known to most as the Waymo—and to science as Vehicula autonoma—this creature upends the natural order, bringing chaos to that which is familiar and threatening an ecosystem that has developed over generations.
The Waymo disturbs the typical flow of nature by waiting to turn left until all oncoming traffic has passed. The Waymo disrupts the food chain by preying on the formerlyinvasive Uber population, which previously drove the native taxicab nearly to extinction. The Waymo claims space in the roads, leaving native cars and bicycles to sit idle until, eventually, they die out.
Most invasive species are eradicated by forced removal. This one is different. The only way to defeat the Waymo is to refuse all contact with it. Do not approach it. Don’t even look at it. It is watching you. It subsists on your intrigue. Do not feed it. It is a dangerous animal, but if you feel inclined to truly inconvenience a Waymo, there is one simple solution: jaywalk in front of it.