On sucker poles

By On July 19, 2011 · 10 Comments

Twice in the past seven days I’ve encountered an unsecured sucker pole.

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A sucker pole next to a highly-secure bike rack provided by the City of Chicago’s Bicycle Program. The adjacent placement of the two fixtures is an unfortunate side effect of construction crews who didn’t receive guidance on bike rack placement. 

What’s a sucker pole? Any sign pole that’s not embedded in concrete or securely fastened to the ground in another fashion. A simple hex nut on a bolt fastens the pole to the base.

So last Saturday I encountered my latest one in front of India House (59 W Grand), just hours after Alexis Finch of Thought You Knew pinup calendar fame mentioned a specific sucker pole at the Green Eye (2403 W Homer) – I could completely remove the pole from its base.

Alexis reported that when she visits that bar, she removes the pole from its base and lays it on the sidewalk to prevent others from locking their bikes there.

I want you to spread the word about sucker poles while at the same time requesting a bike rack for that spot. I invite designers to remake this crappy poster I created and thankfully never printed.

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Remake this “beware of sucker poles” poster into something cool and I’ll pay to print a few copies for you to keep and give to friends or bike shops. 

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  • KD

    Is there a list of known sucker poles? Perhaps this would be something worthwhile to create as a google map or something similar. 

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      Every pole is a sucker pole. 

      Some are missing the near-useless bolt. A map would not be useful as the information would change faster than the map could be updated.

  • http://profiles.google.com/alottes Ash L

    I typically only look at the three bolts securing the base to sidewalk and not the one through the center of the pole. Thanks for the tip.

    I feel like LAZ keeps royally fucking us. 99% of those meters left “as a courtesy” are now gone and nothing useful has replaced them.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      I want to take this opportunity to introduce the two companies in charge of parking meter lease in Chicago. 

      The City of Chicago signed a contract (lease) with Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, a company formed by banks. Chicago Parking Meters, LLC, hired LAZ Parking, a company known for operating parking garages around the country, to implement the change from parking meter heads to “pay and display.”

      So both companies are fucking us. Those poles were left in the most useless locations. For example, in front of long-abandoned building on Milwaukee, southbound side, just north of Grand. Thanks a lot. 

  • Cable Mail

    If you think they haven’t screwed us enough, just wait. I don’t think that the city is going to be so generious in establishing all these bike lines and paths so freely or at least at the cost of the tax payers. I see a day coming soon or sooner than you may think with all of the people are biginning to do more and more biking, commuting to work, shopping, and basicly trynig to save gas and parking. Well, just think, where are all these bikes going to find enough space and secure space to lock them up? Especially at train and bus stations or busy crowded sidewalks. The city may just start charging a bike parking fee and have LAZ enforce that as well. I do know that some municipalities do have a bike license/registration fee yearly or every four or five years such as Milwaukee WI does. It might not be too long before our money strapped great Chicago city (if they haven’t thought about it already) imposes these fees on us.

    • http://www.stevevance.net/planning Steven Vance

      I agree that providing bike parking will become a bigger deal as more and more people bike.

      I don’t think the City will implement a registration or license system because it’s been shown in the United States that these programs cost more to operate than any benefit they provide. 

      We’ll find space in the street, with on-street bike parking, like this one coming up in two Fridays. http://gridchicago.com/2011/wicker-park-bucktown-ssa-moving-ahead-with-bike-rack-installations/

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