Loose guy wire a hazard for pedestrians
When a loose wire hooks up with a wide-eyed soul mate, it’s a perfect match.
But when things come unravelled and the wire is left at loose ends, woe be to anyone who gets in the way.
That’s one way of looking at the situation near the intersection of Bayview and Moore Aves., where a guy wire attached to a utility pole has come loose from the metal eye that anchors it to the ground.
Some utility poles need a little help to stand straight and tall. The weight of wires strung along the tops of the poles creates a relentless pull that can cause them to loosen and lean over.
The standard solution is a guy wire running between the pole and a stout metal eye anchored in the ground, which counteracts the pull of the utility wires along the top.
But guy wires are thin and hard to see, especially at night. Ask anyone who has mistakenly walked into one. Many are now wrapped in a bright yellow plastic jacket to make them more visible.
A reader sent us a note about a plastic-wrapped guy wire that has come unhooked from the metal eye at ground level, on the north side of Moore, just west of Bayview.
The guy wire is “flapping in the breeze,” he said, while the eye to which it is supposed to be attached is “no more than a couple feet away from the sidewalk,” where it’s a tripping hazard.
We went there and noticed that the eye is badly bent and looks like it was run over by a vehicle manoeuvring around an adjacent gas station; what else could bend it at a 90-degree angle?
The guy wire itself is shredded at the bottom and is dangling from the pole near the sidewalk, where it could be a hazard to people on the sidewalk next to it. Status: We reported it to Toronto Hydro, which is responsible for utility poles. Tori Gass, who deals with media for the utility, emailed to say a crew was sent there the next day and reattached the guy wire to the eye. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer, call us at 416-869-4823 or email jlakey@thestar.ca. To read our blog, go to thestar.com/news/the_fixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.