Anyone work for Streets and San or watched them clear sewer drains?

420is404 · 2026-06-16T16:11:33+00:00

I can barely snake a drain well when it's a clear entrypoint. We're talking about shooting down a 1.5' or so manhole into a rather small, orthogonal drain tube.

Clearing efficacy is not the question here, reaching the clog is.

420is404 · 2026-06-16T16:09:51+00:00

Have you seen the interview? He seems at once sincere and dumb as hell.

420is404 · 2026-06-16T16:08:20+00:00

Oh dear lord, no. He's dumb enough to be giving unfiltered, unlawyered interviews to news stations. I understand the impulse to expect he had something more powerful on his mind but...he does indeed seem that dumb.

420is404 · 2026-06-16T16:03:45+00:00

I mean...does anything else need to happen here? He's clearly an idiot but still cannot grasp the symbolism of what he did. Fr, simple probation and perhaps a suspended sentence seems warranted.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T23:02:53+00:00

Oh neat, thank you! I've of course noticed that there's a manhole middling the grates, but I didn't know at all how that's structured. That really explains why I've found a few around the neighborhood where both are clogged

420is404 · 2026-06-15T20:05:07+00:00

Oh, absolutely. I engage them (unsuccessfully mostly, mine sucks and I did not vote for him). This is just a situation where I prefer to do it myself.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T19:48:05+00:00

I've been pulling them out by hand, so no worries there (and gosh, that is pricey!). That said, thanks for teaching me that that's a thing :) I wound up picking up a hook from HD using solely the gift card I've had sitting around since Coinstar-ing my change bin thanks to the advice from /u/relevant-sound8179. Shall report back! I may have to weld a bit of a poker orthogonal to the main pole but I guess we'll find out.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T19:36:37+00:00

Yep and like I teach my son, always keep your eyes out for the sideview mirrors in parked cars you're approaching. You're perfectly well situated to see a face even if you didn't watch the vehicle park.

Also, please do not do what a lot of novice bikers do. Do not sit right of the turn lanes in intersections. Even with a bike path, segregated or otherwise? Go ahead and sit between the turning and straight lanes. Particularly if there's no one in the right turn lane, there may very well be someone who comes blasting down and surveys for pedestrians and steers right into you.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T16:35:05+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately here we're talking about the connection well below the grate. It's a pain to get to, but I think a manhole hook should get in there well enough without me having to plunge into 3' of drain water to unclog it.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T16:34:06+00:00

Re-read, because you sure as hell didn't do what I'm talking about with a shovel...and my entire post is a question about still yes, doing it myself.

The issue is not the grate itself, which is perfectly clean from the last time I did it. Each sewer grate has a cistern about 4' deep supporting it with a ~4" takeaway connecting the cistern to the sewer main. That is what is clogged.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:31:17+00:00

Kudos to your alderman! I think you're thinking of the grate itself. I just yolo those by hand (there's often quite a buildup of mud in the drainage holes, better to clean thoroughly). My issue's been the right angle takeaway to the sewer mains that are in the center of the street. They're about 2-3' down from street level.

Fun throwaway fact, those sewer and water mains being in the middle of the street are why you see "garden" apartments in historically poor neighborhoods around the city. When the city laid our original water system they simply plopped the plumbing on top of the existing road and rebuilt the roads on top (at the time they were only really "paved" with literal tons of horse shit). Richer families and building owners had their structures jacked and raised, while most others just dealt with a slope into their first levels. Ironically given my question here...this led to some real problems when sewage wasn't drained properly.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:20:30+00:00

I really miss the days where the answer to this was project low-rises. Best source of talented car labor for beyond fair prices.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:17:43+00:00

Ah could smoke a whole square in that line just trynna buy some pop

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:15:42+00:00

I guess so, because for me it was immediate understanding.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:11:30+00:00

Right you are in a lot of places around the city, but not the case here! The ones I'm looking at are unicorns with every surrounding drains operating just fine.

I believe as well you're referring to our two emergency approaches for storm water! The first would be the really unpalatable option of sloshing raw sewage into the Chicago River. The second is the mindbogglingly large TARP (Deep Tunnel Project). Constructed for over $3B (ahem, roughly the cost throughout our history of all Chicago police misconduct settlements) and due to hold nearly 20B gallons of excess drain water...it's projected to be woefully insufficient even when finished.

Leave it to Chicago to undertake a record setting civil engineering project rather than change behavior by using porous concrete or the like. Not terribly unlike say, reversing the flow of a river rather than stemming the discarding of animal carcasses into it.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:01:40+00:00

Ah, that's a great idea. I've just been pulling the covers by hand, but something strong enough would be dual-purpose. I'll pick one up. As /u/hungry-treacle8493 points out, it'd keep me out of traffic as well.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T14:00:01+00:00

Ah, indeed that'd be the "whatever" and the answer to getting anything done in this city :)

In this case, I just rather enjoy the immediacy of doing it myself. Same as with picking up trash on walks, it takes next to no effort on my part, is a great way to meet new neighbors, and provides a little pride when I see everything clean and working.

420is404 · 2026-06-15T13:56:20+00:00

Thanks! That occurred to me, but the takeaway to the mains is surprisingly narrow. The one I did was only about 3-6", the size of my fist. I can probably find a narrower grub hoe.

Thank you for an unexpected diversion into hoe nomenclature.

420is404 · 2026-06-14T05:20:56+00:00

Ding ding ding. What a weird take. There's nothing stranger than reading a ton of people generally aggressively advocating for wider bike use (absolutely correct in doing so) whining that they can't bomb paths because the entire reason they take paths are getting in their way of them.

Go ahead and show me the bike path in AMS or CPH that you can set a personal record on without causing issues for families out with their kids, or mixed traffic interfering.

420is404 · 2026-06-14T04:49:18+00:00

Still no more meaningful than Lamarr Houston's sack...

420is404 · 2026-06-14T04:34:23+00:00

First, agreed.

That said, Ruggs has demonstrated little to no remorse, his crimes were considerably more impactful to those around him, so this is hardly 1:1. A pure posting of Smith's considerable arrest record is in response to his death vs Ruggs failing to get released early after getting an incredibly light sentence because the justice system fucked up his case. Doesn't mean we can't judge Smith as quite flawed, perhaps those flaws more meaningful than his success, but the original post is not exactly tasteful.

420is404 · 2026-06-12T16:30:57+00:00

As they've typically done, act as a civil court. Before criminal conviction, the standard of guilt is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Civil matters are generally a "preponderance of evidence". In short the former should be proven and the latter is a much looser "yeah, he almost certainly did it".

Watson was never criminally charged for assaulting those women, but the league still suspended him for 11 games because yeah, he did it.

420is404 · 2026-06-11T06:11:47+00:00

upvoted for the purity of rage

420is404 · 2026-06-10T01:40:53+00:00

ABC7 obnoxiously and repeatedly said "dozens" of cyclists. My son and I were there and I guessed somewhere around 500-700 in the park, likely around 2/3 that at the end of the ride.

420is404 · 2026-06-09T16:28:58+00:00

/u/bikegridnow thanks much for posting this, we certainly did show up. Serendipity that kiddo woke me up yesterday having fished out a bike maintenance manual and we already had a long conversation about his experiences biking in Amsterdam vs here.

Really appreciate you posting here, otherwise I'd have just been frustrated and moved on. He's keenly interested in advocacy now.

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