Enough has been written about these stupid info pillars elsewhere that I won’t bore you with another diatribe against their design or the questionable process that resulted in the city being saddled with them in the first place. This one is in front of Carrot Common on Danforth and in addition to looking ugly, replaced a perfectly good post and ring bike rack, as seen by Google Street View: 
I’ve written to my councillor to ask why parking for two bikes was removed so that Astral could place two giant ads on the sidewalk. It’s almost impossible to find bike parking in this area during the summer and only marginally easier during the spring and fall. We need many more racks here, not fewer. I don’t think that drivers or merchants would quietly stand by if they lost two car parking spots to a billboard, and I don’t see why cyclists should be expected to do so either.
Look how many were removed and replaced with advertising here (photo by Tino):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinreis/6400034681
Ugh. I wish that our elected leaders would realize that this is the kind of thing that happens when you abdicate responsibility for public space to private companies.