WTT? Why haven’t mobile advertising trucks been banned yet?

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Mobile billboard outside Sox Park. Photo by Sabrina Cesas.

[This piece originally ran in Time Out Chicago magazine.]

Q: Twice this past weekend I saw a huge eyesore in the streets: a car driving along with a giant flat screen TV on the back. First of all, this seems like an accident waiting to happen. Secondly, this is not Vegas! It looks trashy and obscene. My question: Is there a certain company that is responsible for dispatching these things all over the city? And is there a way I can stop the madness? — Amanda Petersen

A: A truck cruising the Viagra Triangle with an ad for the Admiral Theater featuring a stripper holding up two cinnamon rolls and the slogan “Hot buns served daily,” could, indeed, prove distracting to drivers. But Rod Harris, CEO of Virginia-based Truck Ads, says the right to operate mobile billboards is a free-speech issue. He adds that advertising trucks, including ones with LED screens, are usually owned by small Mom-and-Pops. “There are probably less than 2,000 [mobile billboard trucks] out of millions of commercial vehicles on the road, so relatively speaking it’s a nit.”

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Giro de Gerrymandering: pedaling the perimeter of the new First Ward

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Andrew Bayley’s ward map jigsaw puzzle. This and most photos in this post are by Bayley.

[This piece also runs in Time Out Chicago magazine.]

It was a blast from the past when Andrew “Cooter” Bayley, an old bike messenger colleague of mine, asked me to pedal the torturous boundaries of the newly redistricted First Ward with him. Back in January, just after City Council approved the new ward map, Bayley made headlines by using a computerized laser-cutting program to turn the map into a handsome, 50-piece Baltic Birch plywood jigsaw puzzle.

“I thought the new map was ridiculous, so I turned it into puzzle,” explained Bayley, who currently interns at an architecture firm. “Now I want to explore the interaction between this particular form of gerrymandering and the urban infrastructure that defines it.”

Continue reading Giro de Gerrymandering: pedaling the perimeter of the new First Ward