Letters to the Editor | Aug. 25, 2026
Inquirer readers on the new traffic medians planned for South Broad Street and the dangers of AI in the classroom.
Broad mistake
I couldn’t agree more with the op-ed on the complete lack of foresight used in the installation of concrete “planters” in the center of South Broad Street. In addition to the authors’ critique, let me add:
Was any consideration given to the additional difficulties of snow removal and street maintenance?
How about losing space for an emergency vehicle en route during heightened traffic?
Was a thought given to further congesting a major artery already encumbered with bus and bike lanes?
How about further strangulation by the inevitable appearance of that darling of the well-heeled — the streetery?
Shall the Mummers be forced to separate into two groups?
Another $150 million boondoggle destined to be removed by a head-scratching later generation. It would seem AI of a different sort has been at play on this one.
J. Savage, Philadelphia
Think for yourself
What do students lose when artificial intelligence writes for them? Everything.
Writing is thinking. You cannot write without thinking, and you cannot learn to think without writing.
While it may be very hard mental work, especially at first, it gets better with practice. Students and others should not be deprived or deprive themselves of that training.
When you write about anything, you research your facts and arguments (AI can help there). You explore counter facts and arguments that may change your perspective. You organize your thoughts in a coherent and appealing way. You learn how to spell, how to use proper grammar, and how to develop your own voice and style.
This is how you develop critical thinking, which is sorely lacking in many of today’s adults. Writing really is an essential human skill. AI defeats that.
I am a retired writer of one sort or another. At 81, I still write every day, and I still reject all efforts of the AI in my computers to do any of the writing for me. The pleasure — and it is a great pleasure — is in exercising that mental muscle, not letting a machine do it for me.
Jodine Mayberry, Brookhaven
It’s a magical world
Instead of daylight saving time, I favor keeping standard time year-round. It’s better for schoolchildren in the winter, and in summer, as Calvin and Hobbes once pointed out on behalf of young children everywhere, “It’s a cruel season that makes you get ready for bed while it’s light out.”
Stephen Bryant, Blue Bell
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