City Was Warned About Thousands of Corroding Light Poles But Failed to Fix Many – CBS2 (Chicago)

Of the 330,000 light poles in the city, more than 33,000 poles, or 10 percent, were graded as having some sort of serious issue across all four of the major categories. “That’s a scary number,” said Dr. Sammy Tin, formerly a professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. “Aging infrastructure, deferred maintenance are tremendous issues.”
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P. T. Bombast
4 years ago

Purchase materials for replacement poles — probably overpriced due to payoffs. Then assemble materials on the job-sites. Then hire watch-persons to guard the job-sites. Then wait for gangs to steal assembled materials for resale. Then file for federal emergency relief because of muggings in the dark. Alternatively, hold materials for cash ransom. Lots of opportunities here.

Rick
4 years ago

“the city that works”, is no longer true. They can’t fix light poles because government now consist of all administrative bureaucrats, lawyers and identity woke hand wringers. In the 60’s and 70’s fixing the light poles would have been but a blip on the radar screen. Now everyone thinks they are a light pole expert so nothing gets done, or they are looking at it as another crisis they can’t let go to waste to get cash. And the price for fixing them will be bloated, delayed and suffer endless cost overruns.

Riverbender
4 years ago

There would be funding for solving this problem but instead it all goes to pensions

Pat S.
4 years ago
Reply to  Riverbender

I doubt that – more likely the social cause of the day.
If the government entities lived up to their annual pension obligations we wouldn’t be in this mess. Instead they declared ‘pension holidays.’
They made promises they are contractually obligated to meet; they’re not meeting them.

The Paraclete
4 years ago

Evaluating Best Practices! Which means hoping someone else knows what to do. When that fails blame Best Practices, it’s self fulfilling gibberish!

Freddy
4 years ago

This is an old article from 2011 but someone just a few weeks ago mentioned on local news about many street lights still off.
https://www.npr.org/2011/11/08/142145523/rockford-ill-shuts-off-streetlights-to-save-money
Here is a newer article from 2021. Nothing much was changed in certain areas.
https://www.mystateline.com/video/rockford-woman-petitions-for-more-street-lights-after-her-husband-was-fatally-stuck-by-a-car/6577994/

Ex Illini
4 years ago

This is an important issue. How will the shooters hit their intended target if light poles aren’t in tip top shape and functioning? Expect an announcement soon from Jabba and Lightweight where they outline plans to spend $300 million to supply gangbangers with night vision goggles to address this inequity.

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