The Chainlink

Yeowsers! This has to be one of the dumbest things I have ever seen.

So I'm riding on Grace going East towards Lincoln and I come upon this:

Large enough that nearly half my front tire easily falls between the gap.

I am amazed at the level of stupidity that decided this was ok. What, like 3 guys laid this down while a guy "supervised" and about 5 people just standing around doing god knows what. Not a single one of them thought to themselves, "you know, this is a bad idea". 

 

Needless to say I stopped and called 311 and reported the city's lack of intelligence. Ticket #11-03359763. These people should be fired. I have no doubt come night fall someone will get seriously hurt. 

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As Always, never trust these temporary plates as this often happens.  They can't be overlapped very well and when the big trucks run over them they can shift slightly.  

 

+1 for the good pictures.  Hopefully people reading will see and remember.  We are pretty much on our own out there. 

Holy gap Batman!

 

No doubt the work of some joker (or massively incompetent imbecile), Ryan.

That kind of stupid BS happens all the time.  Here's a picture from the Halsted bridge over the Congress circle "spaghetti bowl" from way back in 2004 (shown with tall bike for extra danger):

I've never seen plates laid down like this before so this is a first for me. Surprised that if this situation is that common someone hasn't invented a way to fill the gap.

Went back last night on my way home too check on the status of the plates. Why the hell they couldn't do this from the start is beyond me. Glad it was fixed but I wonder how many man hours were wasted on this not to mention how many people fell into the gap before it was fixed. What a joke.

At least they took care of it. A couple of years ago there was a pothole maybe three feet in diameter and two feet deep in 53rd Street after a botched paving job. I had an orange traffic cone for some reason, so I stuck it in there and called 311. The traffic cone stayed there for about three weeks before the hole was fixed.
The gap wasn't big enough for a car tire to fall through, and that's all they are thinking about.
I'm glad it got fixed relatively quickly.  Thanks for making that call.
Thanks for calling, Ryan.

nice job ryan. thanks for looking out for all the two-wheelers. I shudder at the ugliness that would undoubtedly ensue should an unsuspecting cyclist encounter that; tire gets stuck in the crack; bike

goes down, cyclists gets hit and injured (or worse?) by a motor vehicle; cyclist sues the city, the driver of the vehicle; and also the (outsourced ?) repair 'crew' that created the problem in the first place, yada yada yada.

 

For those that remember "The Immortal Class" there is a similar story where a very tragic bike accident

occurred as a result of similar moronic stupidity (DuPage county to be exact) and I remember reading

something to the effect of : "...since bikes are not the ___intended users___ (WTF is up with that)   (i.e. they are *allowed* but not *intended*. can you second class citizens???)

of the road the county did not need to take measures to ensure bike safety. what a confederacy of dunces we are dealing with...sheeeesh.

 

nice job calling 311...thanks again

 

DB

Exactly! My first thought was that there was zero consideration for bicycles but it's "good enough for automobiles" and that was the only concern. That tells me either the workers are not trained to think about bicycles which is an internal policy issue or they simply don't care. Active Trans should jump on this issue and find a way to make sure the construction crews responsible for this kind of thing consider the safety of bicycle travel as well as automobiles.

 

BTW, can you imagine what would have happened if someone died from this? Their family would be able to sue for millions and where would that money come from? Taxpayers. Good thing the economy is thriving right now. Oh wait......

Joel said:

The gap wasn't big enough for a car tire to fall through, and that's all they are thinking about.

Motorcyclists call those suicide plates.  I learned just how dangerous they are as a younger man and now have a knee that will never be right.

 

They are dangerous as hell when wet and tend to move around after they are laid down creating gaps; I've seen gaps large enough to catch a motorcycle tire.  I try to avoid them as much as possible when I see them and dislike riding over them when I have to. 

 

Usually when I see a gap like that I find something to put over it to call attention to it.  Not everyone pays as much attention as they should.

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