Let’s have a ‘smoot’ for Long Island Bridge — a measurement of shame

The Long Island Bridge was abruptly closed in October, displacing hundreds of homeless people and recovering addicts who sought services on the island.David L. RYan/Globe Staff/Globe Staff

How many politicians and bureaucrats pointing at each other would it take to span the now-closed Long Island Bridge?

Unlike the “smoot” — the fanciful metric used to measure the Mass. Ave. bridge, which was named after MIT graduate Oliver Smoot, who was laid head to toe 364.4 times — the measure for Boston’s bungled bridge might be the “smooth” (“A broken connection,” Page A1, Dec. 14). The “smooth” would be named for the artful way the current mayoral administration passed the buck to the previous one.

Or how about the “mute,” for the hundreds of affected residents of the Long Island shelters and participants in its drug treatment programs who had no say or warning about the decision to uproot them?

John Bluthardt

Boston