Tin Discusses Aging Infrastructure in Chicago

Over the course of a decade, Chicago has logged hundreds of complaints involving decaying city light poles, including some that fell and damaged cars and injured residents. Sammy Tin, inaugural Patrick R. Taylor Endowed Chair in Materials Science and Engineering, recently spoke with CBS about the problem, and how it's not unique to the city. 

Tin, formerly a professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, has spent years examining Chicago’s light poles, and says rust is often a key indicator of a deeper problem with the integrity of the pole.

“If you really want to know the condition of the poles, you have to do a full scale [inspection],” Tin said. “It takes a little bit of time... If there’s significant rust, a visual inspection won’t fly."

Data obtained from CBS show that of 330,000 light poles in the city, more than 33,000 poles, or 10 percent, were graded as having some sort of serious issue.

“As a city, as a state, as a country,” Tin said, “we need to do more in terms of investing in aging infrastructure and replacing and servicing when needed.”