Somerville Sinkhole: Freak Occurrence or Bigger Problem?

When a garbage truck fell into a sinkhole in Union Square Friday, Union Square Main Streets posted a video of the scene to its Facebook page.

The voice in the video seemed to capture Boston's somewhat wry humor about such things.

"Good ole' infrastructure here in Boston," the voice said. "Totally safe. Totally safe." There was a slight chuckle before the voice said, "Whoops."

That same week, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the state legislature were wrangling over details in a transportation financing bill.

Meanwhile, here in Somerville the city says it's trying to improve the way it maintains streets, while large street repair projects, such as a proposal to reconstruct Beacon Street, can expose stark differences of opinion about the relative importance of parking, bicycling, walking and driving in the city.

So, what do you think? Was the Union Square sinkhole a freak occurrence, an outlier event that means little? Or was it an example of crumbling infrastructure that's becoming a bigger problem in Somerville and beyond?