#HTE

Today’s Urban Design Observation: Police Barricade Upcycle Fail

This here is your standard NYPD barricade.

They link together by having hooks on one end and loops on the other.

The police use these to block areas off for parades and street festivals. Sometimes when they come to pick them all up, they leave one or two behind, so these aren’t terribly difficult to steal.

So, someone in my neighborhood got their hands on one, and either broke the feet off or the feer were already broken off. And they tried to build their own stand for it using 2x4s and all-thread.

They took the time to dado out the upper 2x4 on each side, and bent one of the all-thread bolts over, presumably in an effort to strengthen the connection.

If you look closely, you can see that they tried to use screws to contact the bottom rail in an effort to prevent it from rotating, in the manner of a grub screw.

This has obviously failed, and the thing does not stand up. Which is presumably why it’s been discarded and left out here on the sidewalk. This is a truly terrible design attempt, and I wonder how long they spent trying to get it to work.

http://www.core77.com/posts/70990/Todays-Urban-Design-Observation-Police-Barricade-Upcycle-Fail