23 ms·

The Struggle with Where the Sidewalks Won't Go

169 points by samsolomon 9y ago

m3rc 9y ago
Small and midsized US cities desperately need a small (or large) urban planning revolution. Cars are considered the "default" too often, especially in cities under half a million in population. It's these cities in particular that need to have an increased focus on pedestrian and assisted walking infrastructure.
- mstade 9y ago
  I keep telling this to anyone who'll listen. I have cousins living in a small affluent US city, and every member of that family has their own car. To me as a European, that's mind boggling. At the same time, I've tried to make it in that town without a car before and while you can mostly get by with a decent bicycle, trying to walk anywhere is pointless. Everything is designed with cars front and center. Parking everywhere, "small" roads are four lanes, sidewalks just randomly stop in the middle of nowhere, leaving you with the option of backtracking, venturing out in the road, or – if you're lucky – cross lawns to get to where you're going. More often than not, the side of the road is your only option if you want to keep going. Crossing streets is easy if you're fit and a reasonably fast walker, but the lights are timed to be quite fast, leaving those less able bodied or slower to simply be stranded in the middle (usually there's a stop) meaning a single crossing turns into two. Fortunately, drivers in this area seem to be fairly friendly to pedestrians, and will yield to people crossing the street. One of my cousins came to stay with me for a few months this summer, and this is when she truly got what I've been saying for years I think. She got by mostly with her own two feet, wherever she was going. When she needed to travel further, I got her a travellers card. I'm not sure she even knows where to find a bus stop in her home town. (Neither would I.)
  - bryanlarsen 9y ago
    "Fortunately, drivers in this area seem to be fairly friendly to pedestrians, and will yield to people crossing the street." That's part of the infrastructure too. Unfortunately it's a part that is easily lost. I went to university in a city that had that culture -- 25 years later that culture is gone as a resource boom pulled in a significant number of newcomers.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    American cities largely feel like they were designed by people who hate cities. Living in Munich now, urban design is easily the #1 thing I'd transplant over to the states if I could.
    - plopz 9y ago
      The US could really use a complete leveling like what Europe got from the world wars. Being able to redesign everything from scratch with modern sensibilities would be great.
      - oftenwrong 9y ago
        That's exactly how the older American cities got where they are today: http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/ http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/
      - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
        "Anybody who travels back and forth across the Atlantic has to be impressed with the differences between European cities and ours, which make it appear as if World War Two actually took place in Detroit and Washington rather than Berlin and Rotterdam." - James Howard Kunstler, Home From Nowhere (1996)
      - TulliusCicero 9y ago
        This is hilarious to me because usually what pro-car apologists say is that the reason European cities are more walking-friendly is because they're so old and have pre-car street grids. Which isn't entirely wrong, but the fact that American cities are hostile to walking was still a collective choice on our parts, the advent of the car didn't mean that we had to explicitly favor them at all times, that was something we decided to do.
  - m3rc 9y ago
    When people think of "urban planning" their minds often jump immediately to large-scale infrastructure changes or totally designed cities built from the ground up, but it's exactly these sorts of little things that are actually the most important. Yielding to pedestrians, like you said, is an element of infrastructure, and it's cheap as hell to change attitudes about it. Parking is absurd. Planning codes have mandated numbers of parking spaces for businesses, so if you want to develop land your only option is to turn it into a strip mall. LA is an asphalt hellscape precisely because of this, parking requirements have made it so there is over 4.2 square meters of asphalt PER PERSON, just for parking alone. I only own a bike but live with a partner who has a car and I know it would be difficult to go completely without in my city (~300,000 pop.) I, like many people my age, am planning on moving to a larger more urban city that will have more public transportation and bike infrastructure, but I recognize that this isn't really the answer. Comparatively poor American millennials and gen-Z's that continue condensing populations into urban centers leaves even less incentive for long term change in mid-sized towns.
    - saint_fiasco 9y ago
      > Yielding to pedestrians, like you said, is an element of infrastructure, and it's cheap as hell to change attitudes about it. I suppose it's an attitude that is cheap to maintain, if it is already common. But I don't know how to change into that system in a place that does not have it already. Teach it in driving schools and wait for old drivers to die?
      - santaclaus 9y ago
        > Teach it in driving schools and wait for old drivers to die? Or pass and enforce laws about yielding to pedestrians. The difference between Oregon (with some of the most pedestrian friendly laws that are actually enforced) and California (where I've watched cop cars slowly roll through crowded crosswalks) is pretty marked.
        saint_fiasco 9y ago
        How can a place like California change from a widespread habit of not enforcing laws to a habit of enforcing them?
  - CalRobert 9y ago
    I have a lot of American family and I think a lot of them don't think it's actually true that you can build a city where you don't need a car. They've heard it, but assume it must be for novelty's sake and for REAL trips you drive, of course, because who could carry groceries? It's really hard to convince someone otherwise if they know no different.
    - lagadu 9y ago
      I actually understand why: from chatting with my US coworkers whenever they visit us, I found something that I find fascinating: grocery shopping is something that only happens at most once a week, usually less often. Because supermarkets are far away from offices and residential areas they only buy groceries very infrequently (compared to me, who does it maybe 4-5 times a week). It makes sense given the urban planning: you get to the office by car and go home by car, so grocery shopping isn't an opportunity that presents itself frequently. Compare it to me: I'll bicycle or take the metro every day and my route (and everyone's really) passes by more supermakets than I can easily count. It's more than a matter of habit or novelty, you can't get people to change unless you offer them an environment where that change is beneficial to them.
      - CydeWeys 9y ago
        I'm a single person and I don't go to the grocery store very frequently, and can still easily carry a week's worth of food back to my apartment using a backpack. If you're willing to use a cart (and a lot of people do use them for shopping) you can bring back even more. I think the problem starts looming when you're trying to buy food for many people once a week. You either need all of those people to come with you to help bring back the food, a motorized vehicle, or a cargo bicycle.
        CalRobert 9y ago
        To be honest, I cheat a little bit - after having a kid I started getting groceries delivered. Regardless, though, I think a lot of my family (obviously a small sample size) just don't really think it's possible. They're so used to everything being a barren asphalt landscape that it just isn't possible to conceive of a practical place where you don't need to drive. I don't even blame them; I lived in it for 30 years and had a hard time imagining anything different myself (though when I did experience it, I desperately wanted to live in it and worked hard to make it happen).
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    The house I grew up, in a rural area, there's a small restaurant we would frequently get food from less than 2,000 ft away. We would have to drive to pick up because it was unsafe to walk there. Busy two lane road with drainage ditches on both sides of the road. Also, not having a car meant you didn't go anywhere. When my grandmothers stopped driving, they stayed cooped in the house all day (except for one, now deceased, that tended to her small garden).
- sethrin 9y ago
  Many cities in the US formerly had light rail systems, but these were purchased and dismantled by companies involved in the automotive industry[0]. These companies also created a "car culture" which may rival Sam Colt's creation of "gun culture" in its deleterious effects on society. The younger generations seem to be rejecting this culture, so perhaps in some few decades we may have a culture where the political will exists to improve public transportation. I'm not going to hold my breath. As an aside, Brasilia probably holds a special place in pedestrian hell. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
- pnathan 9y ago
  I would suggest federal funding emigration to large cities, with federal funding & demands to improve infrastructure. :-)
knodi123 9y ago
Cute bit of artwork at the beginning there. This is the picture they're making an homage to: https://imgur.com/GHPkt3M https://imgur.com/GHPkt3M
- taeric 9y ago
  It makes me sad that this might not be a completely obvious reference to everyone. That image is literally embedded in my memories. Thanks for posting, and highly recommend the book for anyone that hasn't read it!
  - jameskegel 9y ago
    Shel Silverstein
tallblondeguy 9y ago
Empathy is a big way to raise awareness. When I had kids and started walking them around in a stroller, you learn really quickly where the sidewalks with ramps are, and you (and your toddler who likes to help!) come to appreciate the buttons that open doors automatically. I run as well, and it's not fun to trip on uneven sidewalks. Sometimes at night I'd rather run on the road where I can count on a more even surface and no branches hitting me in the face. I think I'm more inclined to shovel my sidewalk in the winter because I don't like running on compressed snow that melted in the sun and refroze overnight. So...yeah! Fix this stuff for disabled people, and other people get to benefit. Sidewalks are for everyone.
- vog 9y ago
  This is so true. That's why here in Germany we have a separate term for that: "barrierefrei", which means "free of barriers". It is the politically correct variant of the other popular word "behindertengerecht" which merely means "suitable for disabled people". Many people here think that "barrierefrei" is just about political correctness for its own sake. But the term "barrierefrei" emphases a completely different way of thinking about this issue: It is about removing barriers for everyone, with disabled people being the most important target group, but by far not the only one.
  - csours 9y ago
    Empathy is a much better approach than political correctness, in my opinion. Political correctness tends to shut down discussions, empathy extends them. PC is prescriptive, empathy is descriptive.
    - vog 9y ago
      I see PC as a way to spread and to communicate empathy: Using words and phrases that don't paint a false picture of reality (and don't trigger prejudices) is IMHO a good start to get to talk with people more openly. Of course, PC only works if you are doing it on your own, not if you impose it on the people you are trying to convince.
danesparza 9y ago
This is a HUGE problem here in the south. I moved from Arizona to Georgia in 2012 and the two things I noticed immediately are: There are hardly any sidewalks outside of the city (and people routinely are forced to walk on the side of the road), there are almost NO lit highways. Even major interstate highways that go through the heart of Atlanta aren't lit! Both of these strike me as enormous lawsuits waiting to happen.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  Not sure which county you are in, but here in Georgia in the metro area where I live side walks are mandatory in new subdivisions and they all are accessible from street level and if not there then from each driveway they pass through. we also get sidewalks in with a certain range of all schools and that is done if the road is repaved or changed. there are still a lot of opportunities for more but even the silver comet trail is mostly accessible from where I have used it (that is a very long and convoluted trail system built upon old rail lines). the state even has a great guidebook for pedestrian planning, see http://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/Documents/ga_ped_guide.pdf http://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/Documents/ga_ped_gui...
  - rconti 9y ago
    Man I've been to Atlanta, and the western suburbs, and it's nothing but dark roads with people forced to walk in the ditch.
- lovehashbrowns 9y ago
  I'm in Austin and there's a weird thing with sidewalks here. They're pretty common, but occasionally you'll run into a situation where one side of the street has sidewalks, and the other side doesn't. Then they'll frequently alternate. So if you needed to use the sidewalk and didn't want to walk on the street, you'll have to cross the street multiple times. It doesn't make any sense at all.
- baursak 9y ago
  Not only that, Atlanta is notorious for half-assed sidewalks that just suddenly end and then re-emerge a mile down the road.
alistairSH 9y ago
While I understand her frustration with the lack of sidewalk ramps, the article went on to describe other places her wheelchair cannot go - like small lips in doorways, or small branches. Pavement cracks. It should be fixed, but that takes time and money. And able-bodied pedestrians are unlikely to report minor cracks. Shouldn't a $30,000 wheelchair be capable of traversing commonly encountered impediments? Cracks in pavement, small branches, doorway thresholds? The article states her wheelchair cannot. That seems like a major design flaw to me.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  I've always wanted to see a comparison of the costs of improved sidewalk infrastructure versus better wheelchairs. Intuitively, the problem of building a wheelchair that can smoothly traverse a curb seems tremendously cheaper then installing and maintaining sidewalk ramps everywhere.
  - nkassis 9y ago
    That ignores that those ramps are used by more than just people in wheelchairs. Folks with children in strollers, elderly with walkers, people with suitcases, ... My wife broke her ankle this summer and we spent 2 months with her rolling around with a knee scooter, it was interesting to see the number of sidewalks without ramps is larger issue then I expected. It doesn't seem like it should be a huge expense to add one in the grand scheme of things and seems way more flexible than adapting everyone with varying needs with some sort of device. Also, given this isn't a new problem it seems like it might be possible that building wheelchairs that can go up stairs and be practical might not be as simple of a project as many here seem to believe.
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      It doesn't ignore those things, it just recognizes that they are small secondary effects. We would never consider building ramps everywhere for strollers or suitcases because the benefits are just obviously not worth the cost. Walkers are fine to consider, but in my non-representative experience, folks who use walkers who can't handle a curb rarely use a walker outside; they use the walker indoors and a wheelchair outside. Yes the world is a disorganized, bumpy, and unwelcoming place for folks using wheelchairs (or scooters), but the question is how to ameliorate that problem economically. "Not huge in the grand scheme of things" does not help us decide which strategy is better, and is an attitude that fails to address the huge invisible drag induced by thousands of individually modest requirements. Going up multiple stairs is a completely different problem. It's naively quite plausible that it's maximally efficient to modify wheelchairs so they go over curbs while still putting ramps and elevators in public buildings wherever there are multiple stairs.
post_break 9y ago
They just built this nice pedestrian bridge that goes along a 6 lane 45mph road by my place. It's got a nice trail on either side, that completely dead ends and you have to try to walk on a 30 degree incline of grass next to the road, or brave getting hit by cars doing 55mph on a road with no shoulder. There are two ways to get around this large bay and this is one of them. The other way is this bridge: http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles38924.jpg http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles38924.jpg
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Was the funding for the pedestrian bridge rolled into the funding for the road bridge? That's happening near here, the federal funding for a bridge project means that there will be a pedestrian accommodation, even though there's no direct connection on either side of the bridge. In any case, unless funding is secured all at once, it's likely to be the case that there are bridges that don't connect anything and sidewalks and trails that end abruptly. But both represent movement towards a complete path.
  - post_break 9y ago
    No, the bridge was built like a decade or two before the pedestrian addition.
- loeg 9y ago
  Your image has been rate-limited.
  - post_break 9y ago
    Whoops https://i.imgur.com/VZZgfKy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VZZgfKy.jpg
VLM 9y ago
This seems very anecdotal, Atlanta will get its hand slapped and the problem will go away. In the frozen north where the frost depth is four feet, somehow our sidewalks look new compared to the pictures. Mere simple mismanagement in Atlanta. The sidewalk in front of my house was poured in 1983 per the stamp, and its basically level and even. That's after 34 northern winters. The decayed sidewalks in the article must be over a century old or horribly corruptly installed. There must be a severe lack of parking or even alleyways. If you want to live the hyper high density urban bug man dream, there will be costs such as no where to park and no ramps from parking to the street to drive wheel chairs upon. There might be more to the story intentionally not reported so as to slant the coverage; perhaps its a historical district where if there were no ramps in 1830, then installing a ramp in 2017 will get you sued by the historical commission. Again, if you voluntarily live somewhere unsuitable for modern standards of living, there is no reason to feel sorry for a fool, if that is the case.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago
  It looks like the problem is in the process of being corrected. But no, it's not historic, and no, it's not a lack of parking - there are huge parking garages and street parking everywhere. It's about a lack of concern for people not in cars. Here's the approximate route: https://goo.gl/maps/AXj2Agtfvx92 https://goo.gl/maps/AXj2Agtfvx92. Compare this aerial photo, showing a previous lack of curb cuts: https://i.imgur.com/Aawb0l8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Aawb0l8.jpg with this Street View image after construction was completed, showing completed wheelchair-friendlier ramps: https://i.imgur.com/A0vf6hV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/A0vf6hV.jpg (Side note: The 3D cell towers and billboard in Google Maps are awesome.) But yeah, the intersection of Centennial Olympic Park and MLK Jr was not built with any thought to disabled people taking a wheelchair back to the parking garage, or even to regular walking pedestrians: https://i.imgur.com/4rPa9Rp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4rPa9Rp.jpg I'm pretty sure that's not an intended route for anyone not in a car. I can see how it would be terrifying for someone in a wheelchair; I'd be scared to even ride my bike there. Looks like they were expected to take a different route to the parking garage than exiting Northside avenue and walking around the streets. While that should be possible, they were probably intended to take the skywalk between the dome and the parking garage. Oh wait, that only has stairs: https://i.imgur.com/uxi0JRg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/uxi0JRg.jpg Wow, what an image. - The red "Stop" pedestrian sign versus the green light for the the police SUV. - The person waiting. Even with his face blurred, I see trepidation and concern in his posture. - The 6" cement curb to the crosswalk - The moldy construction cone - The stairs for the pedestrians, no elevators or ramps for wheelchairs - The bag of trash just laying at the base of the post - The coils of razor wire above the fence As a Michigander, I'm familiar with both frost heave and urban decay. But the warm, welcoming, hospitable South doesn't look particularly friendly in that spot. The location of the image: https://goo.gl/maps/RAFyYfWa5Xs https://goo.gl/maps/RAFyYfWa5Xs
Divver 9y ago
When I moved into Silicon Valley I noticed the same thing! In many Silicon Valley towns like Mountain View and Sunnyvale the sidewalks suddenly just stop and you’re forced to walk on the side is the road. And in Cupertino many streets aren’t lit or very badly lit that it’s almost pitch black... I never noticed these things before coming to California and I grew up in a small town near Boise, ID. Streets were well lit and sidewalks did not just end. And Idaho has a minuscule State tax revenue compared to California is so it shocked me this was an issue in these high income Silicon Valley towns.
- aliasxneo 9y ago
  Interesting as I have the opposite experience from a small town in Oregon. Very poorly lit and sidewalks that have no rhyme or reason.
  - Divver 9y ago
    My town was only 30 mins away from the capitol (Boise) So perhaps the capitol city tax revenue was also used in Meridian (my hometown).
  - Divver 9y ago
    I haven’t ventured into the more rural towns in Idaho I suspect they must be more similar to your town in Oregon. Rural poverty is a nontrivial issue in Idaho, especially when it comes to healthcare.
- danans 9y ago
  This isn't surprising when you consider that SV developed primarily during the era of car-focused city planning. In that sense, it's not terribly different than any other post-WWII US suburban area. There are recent efforts in SV by people and groups[1] who advocate for more pedestrian and bike friendly development, but that is happening on the margins in an area whose development pattern has been established and hence is difficult to change. [1] http://www.spur.org/ http://www.spur.org/
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sledge 9y ago
As a native southerner I find it highly annoying when folks come in from elsewhere to complain about things that are very new to them. The lack of sidewalks amongst other things is something that we/I have always dealt with, know how to get around it, and we just handle it. I'd rather see infrastructure dollars go to fix the abysmal traffic here (also caused by the major influx of folks coming to Atlanta for the jobs). Let's fix the real problems first, then accommodate our new residents with their comparatively petty wants. Now I'm bitter. EDIT: clarification
Stronico 9y ago
Nowhere in this article does in mention that it is city in a forest (we bill ourselves as "Tree City USA"), nor that we encourage people to plant trees right by the sidewalks for shade and decoration. You need a permit to cut down a tree of any size (five inches in diameter IIRC) and those permits are often denied if the tree is healthy. Not that that applies in the central business district, but still. It's a tradeoff, like everything else. When taking the trees into account, Atlanta's sidewalks are about as well maintained as the rest of Atlanta's infrastructure
- klank 9y ago
  I've never once heard Atlanta referred to as "Tree City USA". Atlanta also is not listed in the Arbor Day Foundation's "Tree Cities USA" list. I believe you're thinking of "city in a forest". Atlanta does have about ~10% more tree coverage than average for US cities (36% compared to 27%). More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_tree_canopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_tree_canopy
  - goda90 9y ago
    It is listed though: https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/directory.cfm https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/directory.cfm
    - klank 9y ago
      Wow, somehow I missed that. Thanks for calling it out!
  - ballenf 9y ago
    I would call an increase from 27% to 36% a 33% increase in tree coverage compared to the average city. Not only that, it's the top tree covered city on the source article for that wiki entry: http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/tree-cover-how-does-your-city-measure-up http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/tree-cover-how-doe... Also based on that list, the 27% average seems to be artificially high by giving equal weight to cities of all size given how the largest US cities are all well below 20%.
matz1 9y ago
If I'm disabled seem to be more effective for me if I instead use better accessibility device then pushing for sidewalk improvement.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Sufficiently capable devices don't yet exist, and are even more expensive. Also, you're not thinking about this broadly enough. Sidewalks in bad condition or lacking curb cuts affect way more than just people who use wheelchairs. They affect the blind, the elderly, and even just your every day normal person who trips on uneven sidewalk and injures themselves. Is it really too much to expect of our government that we have sidewalks that are repaired more often than every century, that are flat, and that have curb cuts at appropriate intervals?
  - loeg 9y ago
    All we want is sidewalks that are maintained as well as roads. They do not need to support as much weight (less materials, less wear and tear). Just needs regular grinding/filling.
- qntty 9y ago
  “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
  - matz1 9y ago
    I'll let someone else fight to adapt the world, while I adapt myself to the world :-)
    - lizzard 9y ago
      You might be surprised, changing the world is fun, and you can find great solidarity with others.
TKinNC 9y ago
This is why cities are going broke. I live on a small farm in the middle-of-nowhere NC. (20min to even a gas station) I'm currently working with our local zoning dept. to get approval to use my barn in a home-occupation. Even though I'm far away, will have zero employees, and no customers on the property - I'm STILL being forced to spend close to $3K to retrofit for ADA compliance. Life is not fair. Trying to sue and regulate this country into everyone's idea of "fairness" will bankrupt us and destroy any concept of freedom we still have left.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Your situation is quite different than recently constructed sidewalks being unsafe to navigate by people with disabilities or the elderly, and lacking such basic features as curb cuts. Don't be so black and white.
  - TKinNC 9y ago
    That is exactly my point. She sues, wins and now EVERYONE is forced to comply to a single standard - regardless of the situation. Don't be so naive.
    - hudibras 9y ago
      A single standard that's already required by law. If enough people don't like the law, then they can elect politicians who will change it.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      If the city had done a better job of complying with the existing accessibility laws in the first place then she never would have had to resorting to a lawsuit. Hell, if people had done a better job in the first place those laws would not have been necessary at all, and you wouldn't be affected.
    - s73ver_ 9y ago
      So now everyone benefits from accessibility? I'm still not seeing the problem.
sandworm101 9y ago
Im all for access but there will and must be a point where flat/hard surfaces stop. Trails are a thing, so too gravel roads. We cannot pave the planet. Sure, those in wheelchairs should be able to access city parks but if we say thay they must have total access then we hurt the definition of park. I dont want to see a situation where entry is denied to all, a park not created, because the location cannot be made 100% wheelchair friendly. Nor do i want to see green spaces turned into endless sidewalks.
- CydeWeys 9y ago
  Your comment isn't particularly relevant to the discussion at hand, because at a very minimum we could have accessible sidewalks going everywhere the roads go. The woman in the article simply wants to be able to go to various buildings in her city. She's not demanding an accessible sidewalk paved deep into the wilderness. So I don't understand where you're coming from in making a slippery slope argument about sidewalk construction.
  - sandworm101 9y ago
    Really? Sidewalks on every road is a big ask. There are a host of drainage issues that curbs/sidewalks create. It isnt as simple as laying down slabs of concrete. They need a base that is in some ways more demanding than that of the actual road.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      I don't own a car. I barely know anyone who does. On the other hand, I do walk places every day. I can't even begin to describe to you how absurd I find it that you think sidewalks along every non-interstate road shouldn't be mandatory. When I was younger I lived in a much more suburban area than I do now, and when I stayed late for extracurricular activities in high school (two days a week) I had to take a different bus route home. The closest stop on that route was half a mile away from my house. That's not far at all, and I definitely don't mind walking, however, most of that walk was along a two-lane highway with no sidewalk that routinely had people cruising through at 45+ mph. The county has since thankfully put in some speed cameras to help enforce the 30 mph limit. Why didn't I deserve a sidewalk for my safety, exactly?
autokad 9y ago
I'm not disagreeing with the need for sidewalks and them to be accessible to everyone, but .... in the story, why didnt the husband go get the car and pick her up?
- chowells 9y ago
  Have you ever been to a sporting event at a major venue that seats 70,000? Roads around such a venue are either jam-packed with traffic that isn't moving, or completely closed by the local authorities to be reserved for emergency traffic. It easily could take 2 hours to bring a car close to a venue after a game, let alone getting back out afterwards.
  - autokad 9y ago
    i don't believe she was at a sporting event. that part of the text, along with her love of dogs, being married, working for Amazon, was all fluff to make you feel a connection with the individual, not a relevant to the situation that happened. also, sporting events that i have been to have had wheel chair access. its also a little confusing, because they are trying to make their way back to the car, but didn't encounter any problems when leaving it
    - rconti 9y ago
      The article says she was leaving the Georgia Dome. It was likely not a sporting event (new year's eve). Did you read the article? It was about access to their car, via city sidewalks, after the event at the sporting arena. Your comment about sporting events "having wheelchair access" is not really relevant at all, since it was clearly not about the facility itself.
      - autokad 9y ago
        did you read the comment I am responding to? you must be having a hard time making simple connections: person a: not sure why the husband didnt just go to the car and pick her up person b: thats unpossible at sporting arenas! dont you know! person a: sporting arenas have wheel chair access
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Yizahi 9y ago
This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I PS: every time I visit Europe I often wonder that there are so many wheelchairs. In Eastern Europe you may go around capital city center for weeks without seeing one. It is that bad, even in 2017.
- sampo 9y ago
  > This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I Even though your wheelchair ramps are shitty, you are still, in a way, ahead of America because you at least made an effort to build those ramps, whereas America mostly doesn't have them at all.
  - kizer 9y ago
    I would say that no ramp is better than a dangerous ramp. And I've seen many wheelchair ramps in the US.
  - crooked-v 9y ago
    Watch the video and see how many times a disabled person not wearing full protective gear would have been wounded or killed by the ramp and you'll probably change your mind.
    - sampo 9y ago
      I am not defending the quality of those ramps, but in some cases, a ramp can be useful so that an assisting people could move a person in a wheelchair up the stairs, even if the ramp is not usable for a person in a wheelchair alone with no assistance.
- wruza 9y ago
  I always thought that these ramps are not for one-person climbing (that should be obvious by simply looking at it). Supposedly, someone has to hold a chair from behind. Otoh, I can't remember that I've seen these were actually used, and in the winter such tracks are dangerous place even for able people. In our '90 childhood's winters we used these as sort of extreme attractions.
shmerl 9y ago
Some places are so bizarrely designed, what were their city planners thinking? And I don't mean badly made sidewalks. I mean no sidewalks at all! I suppose the car makers lobby really killed proper city planning in such places.
- TKinNC 9y ago
  Have you ever tried to navigate building regulations? They can be a nightmare. Sometimes you have two different sides of govt. telling you to do things completely opposite - and their answer is "well, sir, that is the requirement."
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
I'd take wide shoulders over sidewalks any day. Wide shoulders increase safety for many more people. People on bikes can use them. Pedestrians can walk on them. People pushing strollers can use them. You can change a tire on them. Drivers can use them to navigate obstructions (like people who cannot promptly take a left turn). Drivers can pull over and re-tie down a tarp that's too loose or change a tire. Snow plows can easily clean them. They're cheaper (than dedicated sidewalks) to build and maintain and don't need curb cuts. Using banked curbs everywhere is another more useful alternative to normal sidewalks (less useful to some pedestrians but create a larger perceived separation from traffic than a shoulder and impossible to kill a tire while parallel parking) Edit: At least offer up a counter opinion if you're gonna down-vote.
- willitpamp573 9y ago
  Just a wild guess here, you only ever drive right?
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    I take public transit and walk about a mile to work. I bike when I just need to go on a small errand. I drive a fair amount for other stuff. Sidewalks work in cities where traffic (vehicle and pedestrian) is always high and areas where you have massive amounts of space for them (mostly places built up after WW2). For areas where sidewalks are not practical a wide shoulder is almost as good IMO. Obviously it depends on the nature of the road as well.
    - willitpamp573 9y ago
      I respect that you have that opinion knowing that you don't exclusively drive. Personally I bike and walk exclusively (do not own a car) and would much prefer separated cycling/walking paths. I get that there is a cost associated with this, but I think the cost is comparatively low to that of even marginal improvements to highway infrastructure.
ballenf 9y ago
I'd say use the road if the sidewalks aren't traversable and it can be done safely. Is it illegal for a wheelchair to use car lanes? Pissing off motor traffic is probably the fastest way to get the sidewalks fixed. Even if it is illegal, I can't imagine a judge not throwing out the citation if you show pictures like that. edit to address the replies: my suggestion was admittedly somewhat tounge-in-cheek and, no, I wouldn't recommend anyone take the risk. Would I do it as performance art? No, because a judge/newspaper/observer would see it as a stunt undermining the whole argument and possibly even harm the cause.
- sulam 9y ago
  Dealing with potential road rage, distracted drivers running right into you, and the legal risk all seem pretty daunting to me.
- detcader 9y ago
  Would you consider trying such a thing in a wheelchair yourself, as political performance art?
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  I think you should think about that suggestion for a second. You have 2 ton vehicles barrelling down the road at 30, 40, 50 miles an hour, and you're in a small, unprotected chair that can probably go 5 at best. And if you think drivers will gladly slow down for you, I'd ask you to go talk to your local cyclists club.
  - rconti 9y ago
    on new year's eve, no less. (drunk hour)
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  In what world is it safe to use a wheelchair on a road? > Pissing off motor traffic is probably the fastest way to get the sidewalks fixed. Tell that to cyclists who have been working for decades to get a bike lane, meanwhile getting hit (sometimes killed) by automobiles regularly.
sulam 9y ago
Something in this article really jumped out at me: "...plus only 16.9 percent of Atlanta households have no vehicle..." Really? "Only" 16.9%? If I told a product manager that "only" 17% of people use iOS 9, so we don't need to support it, I'd get laughed out of the meeting.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Sure, but if your product manager had a long history of systematic racism, and iOS 9 was only used by minorities and the poor, he might tell you to focus your efforts on the nicer parts of town... err, different operating systems.
  - sol_remmy 9y ago
    Its awful seeing comments like yours that are designed to turn Americans against each other. Yes, governments tend to cater towards groups that pay more into the system. Its not about race, its only about income.
    - monocasa 9y ago
      No, having grown up in Atlanta, it is about race. They still unironically call MARTA (the public transit in Atlanta) "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta". They also won't be connecting the new Braves stadium to MARTA because they don't want "a certain type of person". EDIT: Wanted to add that race plays a role in what income you receive. An identical resume with the first name changed from Tyrone to Brad receives three times as many callbacks. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf In fact, a white man with a felony conviction is _still_ more likely to receive a callback than a black man with no record. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pager/files/pager-blacksandex-cons.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pager/files/pager-blacksand...
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      First point: Why is it bad when I (allegedly) turn Americans against each other based on race, while perfectly fine for you to do so based on income? Second point: the reason why many low-income people also tend to be minorities isn't because we live in an unlikely universe where coin flips keep coming up heads - it's due to a diligent effort on the parts of many people to basically keep black people down in the gutter. It's disingenuous to say "oh, it's not about race, it's just about income" in this situation.
oftenwrong 9y ago
Boston is better about accessibility in general, but it is much worse during the winter. Sidewalk snow and ice removal is left as the responsibility of the abutting property owner. The result is a patchwork of pedestrian connectivity that varies meter-by-meter. Wheelchair users and even fully-able people are often seen walking off of the sidewalk, alongside motor traffic. In theory, the property owners should be kept in line by fines, but enforcement is lacking, and the fines are insignificant relative to the value of property in Boston. The roads, though? Promptly plowed and salted by the city on a continuous basis.
- loeg 9y ago
  I swear I've seen sidewalks plowed and salted before, although I don't remember where.
Jemaclus 9y ago
I feel for the author. When I was in college, I ran into a similar issue. I'm not in a wheelchair, but one of my oldest friends from childhood is wheelchair-bound. Every day or two we would go eat lunch or dinner down the street from campus. The main intersection between campus and where all the fast food joints were was a busy, busy intersection with red lights. There were no ramps. To get across the intersection, she would have to go down the street to someone's driveway, wait for a chance to cross, then cross the street with traffic coming in both directions. In the dark, this was absolutely terrifying. After one particularly harrowing crossing, I insisted that she call the City and ask about what they could do. She just brushed me off, saying that they wouldn't care. I pushed her and pushed her, but she wouldn't do anything. So I called City Hall the next day, and I said, "Hi, I'm Jemaclus. I'm in a wheelchair and attend the university. There's no wheelchair ramp at the intersection of 1st and Main, so I have to go down the street and cross from someone's driveway. Is there anything we can do to fix this?" (Yes, I made a white lie.) The lady snapped into action immediately. "Don't you worry. I've got this," she said. The very next day, construction workers were putting in an accessible ramp on the corner, and four days later, my friend and I were able to safely and securely cross the intersection. I have two hypotheses that are not mutually exclusive about what happened: 1. The City probably has a budget allocated to ADA compliance or infrastructure improvements or something. It's also probably a use-it-or-lose-it situation. If you call and point out something, they're HAPPY to do it, because otherwise they lose the money next year. 2. The City definitely doesn't want to be sued for ADA non-compliance, and they will probably move with all haste toward a reasonable solution. In this case, it was a no-brainer: a wheelchair-accessible ramp at a busy intersection with tons of pedestrians. I would encourage anyone who runs into these kinds of problems in public areas (the author's problem was actually private property, so...) to actually call the City Hall and politely inform them of the problem, explain how it's dangerous, and ask how "we" can fix it. In all likelihood, they will probably respond immediately and in a positive fashion due to the above reasons. It might not happen overnight like mine did, but eventually they'll want to cover their asses from an ADA lawsuit. For the record, my backup plan would have been a letter to the editor of the local paper, and then talking to an attorney.
- lizzard 9y ago
  I've successfully done this as well in a smaller town. City Hall engineers sat down with me and looked at accessible routes to school, bus/train station, and the grocery store. They built 7 curb cuts; it cost the city 35K. Every time I saw someone else using those crossings for years afterwards it made me super happy. And, I could take my kid to school without going in the street, in the dark, in the rain... I don't think this works every time but it is definitely worth asking. Another interesting point I found out while going through this process, was that it takes some work for the city to find out who is responsible for particular streets and intersections (It might be a local or state transit agency rather than the city).
supernumerary 9y ago
Vertical Discontinuity baby. Michigan recently passed legislation protecting local municipalities from lawsuits where sidewalks in disrepair are to blame. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2015-2016/billintroduced/House/pdf/2015-HIB-4686.pdf http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2015-2016/billintrod... Gist here: http://www.michiganvotes.org/2015-HB-4686 http://www.michiganvotes.org/2015-HB-4686 While Michigan (esp. Detroit) is exceptional in many respects this kind of legislation whereby neglected infrastructure is no longer a liability for the state is likely to spread. The sidewalks in Detroit are especially heinous. https://iainmait.land/img/photos/1920/street_crossing_2_2017_iain_maitland.jpg https://iainmait.land/img/photos/1920/street_crossing_2_2017...
sol_remmy 9y ago
Funny how no one in this thread even mentions that sidewalks cost a great deal of money to build. "How dare cities in southern states refuse to build sidewalks for their residents! Sidewalks are essential to quality of life!" There is no mention of money. No mention that people in southern cities PREFER lower taxes which means less government services. For anyone from the New England or Colorado or the West Coast: you have great livable cities with lots of amenities but those come at the cost of higher taxes and more regulations. Southern cities may not share your civic culture.
- clra 9y ago
  While sidewalks appear to be a totally unmanageable burden on the budget, somehow it has room for far more expensive roads and other costly auto-related infrastructure. I don't think it's too much to ask for a little equality here. Not everyone paying taxes drives.
  - sol_remmy 9y ago
    > Not everyone paying taxes drives. If this was a city where there were wealthy urbanites who didn't drive, you would be right. If only the poor don't drive, then "Not everyone paying taxes drives" is basically a false statement.
- rconti 9y ago
  I'm not sure every mile in the suburbs needs sidewalks, but it seems like sort of a necessity in any city. The area referenced is smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta.
peter303 9y ago
In my town (Denver) ADA lawsuits is practically a competitive sport. Nuisances dont last long because the fine can be more than the remediation cost. And ACLU is a major participant.
memracom 9y ago
Sounds like a good reason to emigrate to Canada. Canadians would never tolerate sidewalks in such horrible condition. And governments in Canada (municipal, provincial, federal) are used to spending money on the wellbeing of citizens. Let's face it, the USA is broken and even if Trump does manage to fix it, the repair work will take many years.
macintux 9y ago
In my city (Indianapolis) there's been a moratorium on new street lights for decades, although that's finally changing. Combining no street lights with crappy (or no) sidewalks is literally deadly. Teenaged girl was killed in a hit and run 100 feet from my front yard a couple of years ago. People in wheelchairs have been hit and killed in other parts of the city. So many ways to improve, so little political pressure to do it.
tmnvix 9y ago
Reminds me of Andres Duany's presentation to San Diego local government officials[1]. It's very funny and very informative. A highlight for me was when he was discussing an artist's impression of what amounts to an urban wasteland and points out that, yes, that lone pedestrian in the picture is "theoretically possible". Well worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwd4Lq0Xvgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwd4Lq0Xvgc
ArlenBales 9y ago
The sidewalks in my city are a joke. They're incredibly broken and irregular. The streets have potholes that last for months before filled, if at all. Infrastructure in a lot of cities of the U.S. is so piss poor, and I don't know why it isn't made more a priority in our country.
- TKinNC 9y ago
  It's all about cost. There have been several articles on HN discussing the problem. One in particular (I think it was a study done in Michigan) stated the average citizen in that city would need to pay an extra $7K in taxes just to break even for existing infrastructure. (ie.... all new projects are halted) EDIT: It was Louisiana and the cost was $8K, here is the study. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...
crooked-v 9y ago
The idea that individual property owners should be independently responsible for sidewalk maintenance boggles my mind. I had a hell of a time just getting a metal fire door replaced to comply with my HOA... I dread to think how much time and effort it would take to find a contractor who could put in matching paving slabs for an existing sidewalk even if you wanted to.
ljcrabs 9y ago
Good article, but did anyone notice the design itself? What a beautiful website. Dynamic while still easy to read.
cafard 9y ago
If you cross Chestnut St. NW in Washington, DC, from Western Avenue to Oregon Avenue, you will see "No Sidewalks in Hawthorne" signs, but now also "Yes, Sidewalks in Hawthorne". The No signs are older, and the opposition had some odd arguments--sidewalks would lead to more crime. (Who is that is ready for burglary or robbery, but afraid to walk in the street?) In my own neighborhood there are arguments back and forth. I'd be happy to see sidewalks added where they aren't, but I'd hate to see mature trees damaged.

169 points by samsolomon 9y ago

m3rc 9y ago

Small and midsized US cities desperately need a small (or large) urban planning revolution. Cars are considered the "default" too often, especially in cities under half a million in population. It's these cities in particular that need to have an increased focus on pedestrian and assisted walking infrastructure.

mstade 9y ago
I keep telling this to anyone who'll listen. I have cousins living in a small affluent US city, and every member of that family has their own car. To me as a European, that's mind boggling. At the same time, I've tried to make it in that town without a car before and while you can mostly get by with a decent bicycle, trying to walk anywhere is pointless. Everything is designed with cars front and center. Parking everywhere, "small" roads are four lanes, sidewalks just randomly stop in the middle of nowhere, leaving you with the option of backtracking, venturing out in the road, or – if you're lucky – cross lawns to get to where you're going. More often than not, the side of the road is your only option if you want to keep going. Crossing streets is easy if you're fit and a reasonably fast walker, but the lights are timed to be quite fast, leaving those less able bodied or slower to simply be stranded in the middle (usually there's a stop) meaning a single crossing turns into two. Fortunately, drivers in this area seem to be fairly friendly to pedestrians, and will yield to people crossing the street. One of my cousins came to stay with me for a few months this summer, and this is when she truly got what I've been saying for years I think. She got by mostly with her own two feet, wherever she was going. When she needed to travel further, I got her a travellers card. I'm not sure she even knows where to find a bus stop in her home town. (Neither would I.)
- bryanlarsen 9y ago
  "Fortunately, drivers in this area seem to be fairly friendly to pedestrians, and will yield to people crossing the street." That's part of the infrastructure too. Unfortunately it's a part that is easily lost. I went to university in a city that had that culture -- 25 years later that culture is gone as a resource boom pulled in a significant number of newcomers.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  American cities largely feel like they were designed by people who hate cities. Living in Munich now, urban design is easily the #1 thing I'd transplant over to the states if I could.
  - plopz 9y ago
    The US could really use a complete leveling like what Europe got from the world wars. Being able to redesign everything from scratch with modern sensibilities would be great.
    - oftenwrong 9y ago
      That's exactly how the older American cities got where they are today: http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/ http://iqc.ou.edu/2015/01/21/60yrsnortheast/
    - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
      "Anybody who travels back and forth across the Atlantic has to be impressed with the differences between European cities and ours, which make it appear as if World War Two actually took place in Detroit and Washington rather than Berlin and Rotterdam." - James Howard Kunstler, Home From Nowhere (1996)
    - TulliusCicero 9y ago
      This is hilarious to me because usually what pro-car apologists say is that the reason European cities are more walking-friendly is because they're so old and have pre-car street grids. Which isn't entirely wrong, but the fact that American cities are hostile to walking was still a collective choice on our parts, the advent of the car didn't mean that we had to explicitly favor them at all times, that was something we decided to do.
- m3rc 9y ago
  When people think of "urban planning" their minds often jump immediately to large-scale infrastructure changes or totally designed cities built from the ground up, but it's exactly these sorts of little things that are actually the most important. Yielding to pedestrians, like you said, is an element of infrastructure, and it's cheap as hell to change attitudes about it. Parking is absurd. Planning codes have mandated numbers of parking spaces for businesses, so if you want to develop land your only option is to turn it into a strip mall. LA is an asphalt hellscape precisely because of this, parking requirements have made it so there is over 4.2 square meters of asphalt PER PERSON, just for parking alone. I only own a bike but live with a partner who has a car and I know it would be difficult to go completely without in my city (~300,000 pop.) I, like many people my age, am planning on moving to a larger more urban city that will have more public transportation and bike infrastructure, but I recognize that this isn't really the answer. Comparatively poor American millennials and gen-Z's that continue condensing populations into urban centers leaves even less incentive for long term change in mid-sized towns.
  - saint_fiasco 9y ago
    > Yielding to pedestrians, like you said, is an element of infrastructure, and it's cheap as hell to change attitudes about it. I suppose it's an attitude that is cheap to maintain, if it is already common. But I don't know how to change into that system in a place that does not have it already. Teach it in driving schools and wait for old drivers to die?
    - santaclaus 9y ago
      > Teach it in driving schools and wait for old drivers to die? Or pass and enforce laws about yielding to pedestrians. The difference between Oregon (with some of the most pedestrian friendly laws that are actually enforced) and California (where I've watched cop cars slowly roll through crowded crosswalks) is pretty marked.
      - saint_fiasco 9y ago
        How can a place like California change from a widespread habit of not enforcing laws to a habit of enforcing them?
- CalRobert 9y ago
  I have a lot of American family and I think a lot of them don't think it's actually true that you can build a city where you don't need a car. They've heard it, but assume it must be for novelty's sake and for REAL trips you drive, of course, because who could carry groceries? It's really hard to convince someone otherwise if they know no different.
  - lagadu 9y ago
    I actually understand why: from chatting with my US coworkers whenever they visit us, I found something that I find fascinating: grocery shopping is something that only happens at most once a week, usually less often. Because supermarkets are far away from offices and residential areas they only buy groceries very infrequently (compared to me, who does it maybe 4-5 times a week). It makes sense given the urban planning: you get to the office by car and go home by car, so grocery shopping isn't an opportunity that presents itself frequently. Compare it to me: I'll bicycle or take the metro every day and my route (and everyone's really) passes by more supermakets than I can easily count. It's more than a matter of habit or novelty, you can't get people to change unless you offer them an environment where that change is beneficial to them.
    - CydeWeys 9y ago
      I'm a single person and I don't go to the grocery store very frequently, and can still easily carry a week's worth of food back to my apartment using a backpack. If you're willing to use a cart (and a lot of people do use them for shopping) you can bring back even more. I think the problem starts looming when you're trying to buy food for many people once a week. You either need all of those people to come with you to help bring back the food, a motorized vehicle, or a cargo bicycle.
      - CalRobert 9y ago
        To be honest, I cheat a little bit - after having a kid I started getting groceries delivered. Regardless, though, I think a lot of my family (obviously a small sample size) just don't really think it's possible. They're so used to everything being a barren asphalt landscape that it just isn't possible to conceive of a practical place where you don't need to drive. I don't even blame them; I lived in it for 30 years and had a hard time imagining anything different myself (though when I did experience it, I desperately wanted to live in it and worked hard to make it happen).
- JBlue42 9y ago
  The house I grew up, in a rural area, there's a small restaurant we would frequently get food from less than 2,000 ft away. We would have to drive to pick up because it was unsafe to walk there. Busy two lane road with drainage ditches on both sides of the road. Also, not having a car meant you didn't go anywhere. When my grandmothers stopped driving, they stayed cooped in the house all day (except for one, now deceased, that tended to her small garden).
sethrin 9y ago
Many cities in the US formerly had light rail systems, but these were purchased and dismantled by companies involved in the automotive industry[0]. These companies also created a "car culture" which may rival Sam Colt's creation of "gun culture" in its deleterious effects on society. The younger generations seem to be rejecting this culture, so perhaps in some few decades we may have a culture where the political will exists to improve public transportation. I'm not going to hold my breath. As an aside, Brasilia probably holds a special place in pedestrian hell. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...
pnathan 9y ago
I would suggest federal funding emigration to large cities, with federal funding & demands to improve infrastructure. :-)

knodi123 9y ago

Cute bit of artwork at the beginning there. This is the picture they're making an homage to: https://imgur.com/GHPkt3M https://imgur.com/GHPkt3M

taeric 9y ago
It makes me sad that this might not be a completely obvious reference to everyone. That image is literally embedded in my memories. Thanks for posting, and highly recommend the book for anyone that hasn't read it!
- jameskegel 9y ago
  Shel Silverstein

tallblondeguy 9y ago

Empathy is a big way to raise awareness. When I had kids and started walking them around in a stroller, you learn really quickly where the sidewalks with ramps are, and you (and your toddler who likes to help!) come to appreciate the buttons that open doors automatically. I run as well, and it's not fun to trip on uneven sidewalks. Sometimes at night I'd rather run on the road where I can count on a more even surface and no branches hitting me in the face. I think I'm more inclined to shovel my sidewalk in the winter because I don't like running on compressed snow that melted in the sun and refroze overnight. So...yeah! Fix this stuff for disabled people, and other people get to benefit. Sidewalks are for everyone.

vog 9y ago
This is so true. That's why here in Germany we have a separate term for that: "barrierefrei", which means "free of barriers". It is the politically correct variant of the other popular word "behindertengerecht" which merely means "suitable for disabled people". Many people here think that "barrierefrei" is just about political correctness for its own sake. But the term "barrierefrei" emphases a completely different way of thinking about this issue: It is about removing barriers for everyone, with disabled people being the most important target group, but by far not the only one.
- csours 9y ago
  Empathy is a much better approach than political correctness, in my opinion. Political correctness tends to shut down discussions, empathy extends them. PC is prescriptive, empathy is descriptive.
  - vog 9y ago
    I see PC as a way to spread and to communicate empathy: Using words and phrases that don't paint a false picture of reality (and don't trigger prejudices) is IMHO a good start to get to talk with people more openly. Of course, PC only works if you are doing it on your own, not if you impose it on the people you are trying to convince.

danesparza 9y ago

This is a HUGE problem here in the south. I moved from Arizona to Georgia in 2012 and the two things I noticed immediately are: There are hardly any sidewalks outside of the city (and people routinely are forced to walk on the side of the road), there are almost NO lit highways. Even major interstate highways that go through the heart of Atlanta aren't lit! Both of these strike me as enormous lawsuits waiting to happen.

Shivetya 9y ago
Not sure which county you are in, but here in Georgia in the metro area where I live side walks are mandatory in new subdivisions and they all are accessible from street level and if not there then from each driveway they pass through. we also get sidewalks in with a certain range of all schools and that is done if the road is repaved or changed. there are still a lot of opportunities for more but even the silver comet trail is mostly accessible from where I have used it (that is a very long and convoluted trail system built upon old rail lines). the state even has a great guidebook for pedestrian planning, see http://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/Documents/ga_ped_guide.pdf http://www.dot.ga.gov/DriveSmart/Travel/Documents/ga_ped_gui...
- rconti 9y ago
  Man I've been to Atlanta, and the western suburbs, and it's nothing but dark roads with people forced to walk in the ditch.
lovehashbrowns 9y ago
I'm in Austin and there's a weird thing with sidewalks here. They're pretty common, but occasionally you'll run into a situation where one side of the street has sidewalks, and the other side doesn't. Then they'll frequently alternate. So if you needed to use the sidewalk and didn't want to walk on the street, you'll have to cross the street multiple times. It doesn't make any sense at all.
baursak 9y ago
Not only that, Atlanta is notorious for half-assed sidewalks that just suddenly end and then re-emerge a mile down the road.

alistairSH 9y ago

While I understand her frustration with the lack of sidewalk ramps, the article went on to describe other places her wheelchair cannot go - like small lips in doorways, or small branches. Pavement cracks. It should be fixed, but that takes time and money. And able-bodied pedestrians are unlikely to report minor cracks. Shouldn't a $30,000 wheelchair be capable of traversing commonly encountered impediments? Cracks in pavement, small branches, doorway thresholds? The article states her wheelchair cannot. That seems like a major design flaw to me.

jessriedel 9y ago
I've always wanted to see a comparison of the costs of improved sidewalk infrastructure versus better wheelchairs. Intuitively, the problem of building a wheelchair that can smoothly traverse a curb seems tremendously cheaper then installing and maintaining sidewalk ramps everywhere.
- nkassis 9y ago
  That ignores that those ramps are used by more than just people in wheelchairs. Folks with children in strollers, elderly with walkers, people with suitcases, ... My wife broke her ankle this summer and we spent 2 months with her rolling around with a knee scooter, it was interesting to see the number of sidewalks without ramps is larger issue then I expected. It doesn't seem like it should be a huge expense to add one in the grand scheme of things and seems way more flexible than adapting everyone with varying needs with some sort of device. Also, given this isn't a new problem it seems like it might be possible that building wheelchairs that can go up stairs and be practical might not be as simple of a project as many here seem to believe.
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    It doesn't ignore those things, it just recognizes that they are small secondary effects. We would never consider building ramps everywhere for strollers or suitcases because the benefits are just obviously not worth the cost. Walkers are fine to consider, but in my non-representative experience, folks who use walkers who can't handle a curb rarely use a walker outside; they use the walker indoors and a wheelchair outside. Yes the world is a disorganized, bumpy, and unwelcoming place for folks using wheelchairs (or scooters), but the question is how to ameliorate that problem economically. "Not huge in the grand scheme of things" does not help us decide which strategy is better, and is an attitude that fails to address the huge invisible drag induced by thousands of individually modest requirements. Going up multiple stairs is a completely different problem. It's naively quite plausible that it's maximally efficient to modify wheelchairs so they go over curbs while still putting ramps and elevators in public buildings wherever there are multiple stairs.

post_break 9y ago

They just built this nice pedestrian bridge that goes along a 6 lane 45mph road by my place. It's got a nice trail on either side, that completely dead ends and you have to try to walk on a 30 degree incline of grass next to the road, or brave getting hit by cars doing 55mph on a road with no shoulder. There are two ways to get around this large bay and this is one of them. The other way is this bridge: http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles38924.jpg http://pics4.city-data.com/cpicc/cfiles38924.jpg

maxerickson 9y ago
Was the funding for the pedestrian bridge rolled into the funding for the road bridge? That's happening near here, the federal funding for a bridge project means that there will be a pedestrian accommodation, even though there's no direct connection on either side of the bridge. In any case, unless funding is secured all at once, it's likely to be the case that there are bridges that don't connect anything and sidewalks and trails that end abruptly. But both represent movement towards a complete path.
- post_break 9y ago
  No, the bridge was built like a decade or two before the pedestrian addition.
loeg 9y ago
Your image has been rate-limited.
- post_break 9y ago
  Whoops https://i.imgur.com/VZZgfKy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VZZgfKy.jpg

VLM 9y ago

This seems very anecdotal, Atlanta will get its hand slapped and the problem will go away. In the frozen north where the frost depth is four feet, somehow our sidewalks look new compared to the pictures. Mere simple mismanagement in Atlanta. The sidewalk in front of my house was poured in 1983 per the stamp, and its basically level and even. That's after 34 northern winters. The decayed sidewalks in the article must be over a century old or horribly corruptly installed. There must be a severe lack of parking or even alleyways. If you want to live the hyper high density urban bug man dream, there will be costs such as no where to park and no ramps from parking to the street to drive wheel chairs upon. There might be more to the story intentionally not reported so as to slant the coverage; perhaps its a historical district where if there were no ramps in 1830, then installing a ramp in 2017 will get you sued by the historical commission. Again, if you voluntarily live somewhere unsuitable for modern standards of living, there is no reason to feel sorry for a fool, if that is the case.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago
It looks like the problem is in the process of being corrected. But no, it's not historic, and no, it's not a lack of parking - there are huge parking garages and street parking everywhere. It's about a lack of concern for people not in cars. Here's the approximate route: https://goo.gl/maps/AXj2Agtfvx92 https://goo.gl/maps/AXj2Agtfvx92. Compare this aerial photo, showing a previous lack of curb cuts: https://i.imgur.com/Aawb0l8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Aawb0l8.jpg with this Street View image after construction was completed, showing completed wheelchair-friendlier ramps: https://i.imgur.com/A0vf6hV.jpg https://i.imgur.com/A0vf6hV.jpg (Side note: The 3D cell towers and billboard in Google Maps are awesome.) But yeah, the intersection of Centennial Olympic Park and MLK Jr was not built with any thought to disabled people taking a wheelchair back to the parking garage, or even to regular walking pedestrians: https://i.imgur.com/4rPa9Rp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/4rPa9Rp.jpg I'm pretty sure that's not an intended route for anyone not in a car. I can see how it would be terrifying for someone in a wheelchair; I'd be scared to even ride my bike there. Looks like they were expected to take a different route to the parking garage than exiting Northside avenue and walking around the streets. While that should be possible, they were probably intended to take the skywalk between the dome and the parking garage. Oh wait, that only has stairs: https://i.imgur.com/uxi0JRg.jpg https://i.imgur.com/uxi0JRg.jpg Wow, what an image. - The red "Stop" pedestrian sign versus the green light for the the police SUV. - The person waiting. Even with his face blurred, I see trepidation and concern in his posture. - The 6" cement curb to the crosswalk - The moldy construction cone - The stairs for the pedestrians, no elevators or ramps for wheelchairs - The bag of trash just laying at the base of the post - The coils of razor wire above the fence As a Michigander, I'm familiar with both frost heave and urban decay. But the warm, welcoming, hospitable South doesn't look particularly friendly in that spot. The location of the image: https://goo.gl/maps/RAFyYfWa5Xs https://goo.gl/maps/RAFyYfWa5Xs

Divver 9y ago

When I moved into Silicon Valley I noticed the same thing! In many Silicon Valley towns like Mountain View and Sunnyvale the sidewalks suddenly just stop and you’re forced to walk on the side is the road. And in Cupertino many streets aren’t lit or very badly lit that it’s almost pitch black... I never noticed these things before coming to California and I grew up in a small town near Boise, ID. Streets were well lit and sidewalks did not just end. And Idaho has a minuscule State tax revenue compared to California is so it shocked me this was an issue in these high income Silicon Valley towns.

aliasxneo 9y ago
Interesting as I have the opposite experience from a small town in Oregon. Very poorly lit and sidewalks that have no rhyme or reason.
- Divver 9y ago
  My town was only 30 mins away from the capitol (Boise) So perhaps the capitol city tax revenue was also used in Meridian (my hometown).
- Divver 9y ago
  I haven’t ventured into the more rural towns in Idaho I suspect they must be more similar to your town in Oregon. Rural poverty is a nontrivial issue in Idaho, especially when it comes to healthcare.
danans 9y ago
This isn't surprising when you consider that SV developed primarily during the era of car-focused city planning. In that sense, it's not terribly different than any other post-WWII US suburban area. There are recent efforts in SV by people and groups[1] who advocate for more pedestrian and bike friendly development, but that is happening on the margins in an area whose development pattern has been established and hence is difficult to change. [1] http://www.spur.org/ http://www.spur.org/

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sledge 9y ago

As a native southerner I find it highly annoying when folks come in from elsewhere to complain about things that are very new to them. The lack of sidewalks amongst other things is something that we/I have always dealt with, know how to get around it, and we just handle it. I'd rather see infrastructure dollars go to fix the abysmal traffic here (also caused by the major influx of folks coming to Atlanta for the jobs). Let's fix the real problems first, then accommodate our new residents with their comparatively petty wants. Now I'm bitter. EDIT: clarification

Stronico 9y ago

Nowhere in this article does in mention that it is city in a forest (we bill ourselves as "Tree City USA"), nor that we encourage people to plant trees right by the sidewalks for shade and decoration. You need a permit to cut down a tree of any size (five inches in diameter IIRC) and those permits are often denied if the tree is healthy. Not that that applies in the central business district, but still. It's a tradeoff, like everything else. When taking the trees into account, Atlanta's sidewalks are about as well maintained as the rest of Atlanta's infrastructure

klank 9y ago
I've never once heard Atlanta referred to as "Tree City USA". Atlanta also is not listed in the Arbor Day Foundation's "Tree Cities USA" list. I believe you're thinking of "city in a forest". Atlanta does have about ~10% more tree coverage than average for US cities (36% compared to 27%). More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_tree_canopy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_tree_canopy
- goda90 9y ago
  It is listed though: https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/directory.cfm https://www.arborday.org/programs/treecityusa/directory.cfm
  - klank 9y ago
    Wow, somehow I missed that. Thanks for calling it out!
- ballenf 9y ago
  I would call an increase from 27% to 36% a 33% increase in tree coverage compared to the average city. Not only that, it's the top tree covered city on the source article for that wiki entry: http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/tree-cover-how-does-your-city-measure-up http://www.deeproot.com/blog/blog-entries/tree-cover-how-doe... Also based on that list, the 27% average seems to be artificially high by giving equal weight to cities of all size given how the largest US cities are all well below 20%.

matz1 9y ago

If I'm disabled seem to be more effective for me if I instead use better accessibility device then pushing for sidewalk improvement.

CydeWeys 9y ago
Sufficiently capable devices don't yet exist, and are even more expensive. Also, you're not thinking about this broadly enough. Sidewalks in bad condition or lacking curb cuts affect way more than just people who use wheelchairs. They affect the blind, the elderly, and even just your every day normal person who trips on uneven sidewalk and injures themselves. Is it really too much to expect of our government that we have sidewalks that are repaired more often than every century, that are flat, and that have curb cuts at appropriate intervals?
- loeg 9y ago
  All we want is sidewalks that are maintained as well as roads. They do not need to support as much weight (less materials, less wear and tear). Just needs regular grinding/filling.
qntty 9y ago
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
- matz1 9y ago
  I'll let someone else fight to adapt the world, while I adapt myself to the world :-)
  - lizzard 9y ago
    You might be surprised, changing the world is fun, and you can find great solidarity with others.

TKinNC 9y ago

This is why cities are going broke. I live on a small farm in the middle-of-nowhere NC. (20min to even a gas station) I'm currently working with our local zoning dept. to get approval to use my barn in a home-occupation. Even though I'm far away, will have zero employees, and no customers on the property - I'm STILL being forced to spend close to $3K to retrofit for ADA compliance. Life is not fair. Trying to sue and regulate this country into everyone's idea of "fairness" will bankrupt us and destroy any concept of freedom we still have left.

CydeWeys 9y ago
Your situation is quite different than recently constructed sidewalks being unsafe to navigate by people with disabilities or the elderly, and lacking such basic features as curb cuts. Don't be so black and white.
- TKinNC 9y ago
  That is exactly my point. She sues, wins and now EVERYONE is forced to comply to a single standard - regardless of the situation. Don't be so naive.
  - hudibras 9y ago
    A single standard that's already required by law. If enough people don't like the law, then they can elect politicians who will change it.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    If the city had done a better job of complying with the existing accessibility laws in the first place then she never would have had to resorting to a lawsuit. Hell, if people had done a better job in the first place those laws would not have been necessary at all, and you wouldn't be affected.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    So now everyone benefits from accessibility? I'm still not seeing the problem.

sandworm101 9y ago

Im all for access but there will and must be a point where flat/hard surfaces stop. Trails are a thing, so too gravel roads. We cannot pave the planet. Sure, those in wheelchairs should be able to access city parks but if we say thay they must have total access then we hurt the definition of park. I dont want to see a situation where entry is denied to all, a park not created, because the location cannot be made 100% wheelchair friendly. Nor do i want to see green spaces turned into endless sidewalks.

CydeWeys 9y ago
Your comment isn't particularly relevant to the discussion at hand, because at a very minimum we could have accessible sidewalks going everywhere the roads go. The woman in the article simply wants to be able to go to various buildings in her city. She's not demanding an accessible sidewalk paved deep into the wilderness. So I don't understand where you're coming from in making a slippery slope argument about sidewalk construction.
- sandworm101 9y ago
  Really? Sidewalks on every road is a big ask. There are a host of drainage issues that curbs/sidewalks create. It isnt as simple as laying down slabs of concrete. They need a base that is in some ways more demanding than that of the actual road.
  - CydeWeys 9y ago
    I don't own a car. I barely know anyone who does. On the other hand, I do walk places every day. I can't even begin to describe to you how absurd I find it that you think sidewalks along every non-interstate road shouldn't be mandatory. When I was younger I lived in a much more suburban area than I do now, and when I stayed late for extracurricular activities in high school (two days a week) I had to take a different bus route home. The closest stop on that route was half a mile away from my house. That's not far at all, and I definitely don't mind walking, however, most of that walk was along a two-lane highway with no sidewalk that routinely had people cruising through at 45+ mph. The county has since thankfully put in some speed cameras to help enforce the 30 mph limit. Why didn't I deserve a sidewalk for my safety, exactly?

autokad 9y ago

I'm not disagreeing with the need for sidewalks and them to be accessible to everyone, but .... in the story, why didnt the husband go get the car and pick her up?

chowells 9y ago
Have you ever been to a sporting event at a major venue that seats 70,000? Roads around such a venue are either jam-packed with traffic that isn't moving, or completely closed by the local authorities to be reserved for emergency traffic. It easily could take 2 hours to bring a car close to a venue after a game, let alone getting back out afterwards.
- autokad 9y ago
  i don't believe she was at a sporting event. that part of the text, along with her love of dogs, being married, working for Amazon, was all fluff to make you feel a connection with the individual, not a relevant to the situation that happened. also, sporting events that i have been to have had wheel chair access. its also a little confusing, because they are trying to make their way back to the car, but didn't encounter any problems when leaving it
  - rconti 9y ago
    The article says she was leaving the Georgia Dome. It was likely not a sporting event (new year's eve). Did you read the article? It was about access to their car, via city sidewalks, after the event at the sporting arena. Your comment about sporting events "having wheelchair access" is not really relevant at all, since it was clearly not about the facility itself.
    - autokad 9y ago
      did you read the comment I am responding to? you must be having a hard time making simple connections: person a: not sure why the husband didnt just go to the car and pick her up person b: thats unpossible at sporting arenas! dont you know! person a: sporting arenas have wheel chair access

deleted 9y ago

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Yizahi 9y ago

This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I PS: every time I visit Europe I often wonder that there are so many wheelchairs. In Eastern Europe you may go around capital city center for weeks without seeing one. It is that bad, even in 2017.

sampo 9y ago
> This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I Even though your wheelchair ramps are shitty, you are still, in a way, ahead of America because you at least made an effort to build those ramps, whereas America mostly doesn't have them at all.
- kizer 9y ago
  I would say that no ramp is better than a dangerous ramp. And I've seen many wheelchair ramps in the US.
- crooked-v 9y ago
  Watch the video and see how many times a disabled person not wearing full protective gear would have been wounded or killed by the ramp and you'll probably change your mind.
  - sampo 9y ago
    I am not defending the quality of those ramps, but in some cases, a ramp can be useful so that an assisting people could move a person in a wheelchair up the stairs, even if the ramp is not usable for a person in a wheelchair alone with no assistance.
wruza 9y ago
I always thought that these ramps are not for one-person climbing (that should be obvious by simply looking at it). Supposedly, someone has to hold a chair from behind. Otoh, I can't remember that I've seen these were actually used, and in the winter such tracks are dangerous place even for able people. In our '90 childhood's winters we used these as sort of extreme attractions.

shmerl 9y ago

Some places are so bizarrely designed, what were their city planners thinking? And I don't mean badly made sidewalks. I mean no sidewalks at all! I suppose the car makers lobby really killed proper city planning in such places.

TKinNC 9y ago
Have you ever tried to navigate building regulations? They can be a nightmare. Sometimes you have two different sides of govt. telling you to do things completely opposite - and their answer is "well, sir, that is the requirement."

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

I'd take wide shoulders over sidewalks any day. Wide shoulders increase safety for many more people. People on bikes can use them. Pedestrians can walk on them. People pushing strollers can use them. You can change a tire on them. Drivers can use them to navigate obstructions (like people who cannot promptly take a left turn). Drivers can pull over and re-tie down a tarp that's too loose or change a tire. Snow plows can easily clean them. They're cheaper (than dedicated sidewalks) to build and maintain and don't need curb cuts. Using banked curbs everywhere is another more useful alternative to normal sidewalks (less useful to some pedestrians but create a larger perceived separation from traffic than a shoulder and impossible to kill a tire while parallel parking) Edit: At least offer up a counter opinion if you're gonna down-vote.

willitpamp573 9y ago
Just a wild guess here, you only ever drive right?
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  I take public transit and walk about a mile to work. I bike when I just need to go on a small errand. I drive a fair amount for other stuff. Sidewalks work in cities where traffic (vehicle and pedestrian) is always high and areas where you have massive amounts of space for them (mostly places built up after WW2). For areas where sidewalks are not practical a wide shoulder is almost as good IMO. Obviously it depends on the nature of the road as well.
  - willitpamp573 9y ago
    I respect that you have that opinion knowing that you don't exclusively drive. Personally I bike and walk exclusively (do not own a car) and would much prefer separated cycling/walking paths. I get that there is a cost associated with this, but I think the cost is comparatively low to that of even marginal improvements to highway infrastructure.

ballenf 9y ago

I'd say use the road if the sidewalks aren't traversable and it can be done safely. Is it illegal for a wheelchair to use car lanes? Pissing off motor traffic is probably the fastest way to get the sidewalks fixed. Even if it is illegal, I can't imagine a judge not throwing out the citation if you show pictures like that. edit to address the replies: my suggestion was admittedly somewhat tounge-in-cheek and, no, I wouldn't recommend anyone take the risk. Would I do it as performance art? No, because a judge/newspaper/observer would see it as a stunt undermining the whole argument and possibly even harm the cause.

sulam 9y ago
Dealing with potential road rage, distracted drivers running right into you, and the legal risk all seem pretty daunting to me.
detcader 9y ago
Would you consider trying such a thing in a wheelchair yourself, as political performance art?
s73ver_ 9y ago
I think you should think about that suggestion for a second. You have 2 ton vehicles barrelling down the road at 30, 40, 50 miles an hour, and you're in a small, unprotected chair that can probably go 5 at best. And if you think drivers will gladly slow down for you, I'd ask you to go talk to your local cyclists club.
- rconti 9y ago
  on new year's eve, no less. (drunk hour)
peterwwillis 9y ago
In what world is it safe to use a wheelchair on a road? > Pissing off motor traffic is probably the fastest way to get the sidewalks fixed. Tell that to cyclists who have been working for decades to get a bike lane, meanwhile getting hit (sometimes killed) by automobiles regularly.

sulam 9y ago

Something in this article really jumped out at me: "...plus only 16.9 percent of Atlanta households have no vehicle..." Really? "Only" 16.9%? If I told a product manager that "only" 17% of people use iOS 9, so we don't need to support it, I'd get laughed out of the meeting.

pavel_lishin 9y ago
Sure, but if your product manager had a long history of systematic racism, and iOS 9 was only used by minorities and the poor, he might tell you to focus your efforts on the nicer parts of town... err, different operating systems.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  Its awful seeing comments like yours that are designed to turn Americans against each other. Yes, governments tend to cater towards groups that pay more into the system. Its not about race, its only about income.
  - monocasa 9y ago
    No, having grown up in Atlanta, it is about race. They still unironically call MARTA (the public transit in Atlanta) "Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta". They also won't be connecting the new Braves stadium to MARTA because they don't want "a certain type of person". EDIT: Wanted to add that race plays a role in what income you receive. An identical resume with the first name changed from Tyrone to Brad receives three times as many callbacks. http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873.pdf In fact, a white man with a felony conviction is _still_ more likely to receive a callback than a black man with no record. http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pager/files/pager-blacksandex-cons.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/pager/files/pager-blacksand...
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    First point: Why is it bad when I (allegedly) turn Americans against each other based on race, while perfectly fine for you to do so based on income? Second point: the reason why many low-income people also tend to be minorities isn't because we live in an unlikely universe where coin flips keep coming up heads - it's due to a diligent effort on the parts of many people to basically keep black people down in the gutter. It's disingenuous to say "oh, it's not about race, it's just about income" in this situation.

oftenwrong 9y ago

Boston is better about accessibility in general, but it is much worse during the winter. Sidewalk snow and ice removal is left as the responsibility of the abutting property owner. The result is a patchwork of pedestrian connectivity that varies meter-by-meter. Wheelchair users and even fully-able people are often seen walking off of the sidewalk, alongside motor traffic. In theory, the property owners should be kept in line by fines, but enforcement is lacking, and the fines are insignificant relative to the value of property in Boston. The roads, though? Promptly plowed and salted by the city on a continuous basis.

loeg 9y ago
I swear I've seen sidewalks plowed and salted before, although I don't remember where.

Jemaclus 9y ago

I feel for the author. When I was in college, I ran into a similar issue. I'm not in a wheelchair, but one of my oldest friends from childhood is wheelchair-bound. Every day or two we would go eat lunch or dinner down the street from campus. The main intersection between campus and where all the fast food joints were was a busy, busy intersection with red lights. There were no ramps. To get across the intersection, she would have to go down the street to someone's driveway, wait for a chance to cross, then cross the street with traffic coming in both directions. In the dark, this was absolutely terrifying. After one particularly harrowing crossing, I insisted that she call the City and ask about what they could do. She just brushed me off, saying that they wouldn't care. I pushed her and pushed her, but she wouldn't do anything. So I called City Hall the next day, and I said, "Hi, I'm Jemaclus. I'm in a wheelchair and attend the university. There's no wheelchair ramp at the intersection of 1st and Main, so I have to go down the street and cross from someone's driveway. Is there anything we can do to fix this?" (Yes, I made a white lie.) The lady snapped into action immediately. "Don't you worry. I've got this," she said. The very next day, construction workers were putting in an accessible ramp on the corner, and four days later, my friend and I were able to safely and securely cross the intersection. I have two hypotheses that are not mutually exclusive about what happened: 1. The City probably has a budget allocated to ADA compliance or infrastructure improvements or something. It's also probably a use-it-or-lose-it situation. If you call and point out something, they're HAPPY to do it, because otherwise they lose the money next year. 2. The City definitely doesn't want to be sued for ADA non-compliance, and they will probably move with all haste toward a reasonable solution. In this case, it was a no-brainer: a wheelchair-accessible ramp at a busy intersection with tons of pedestrians. I would encourage anyone who runs into these kinds of problems in public areas (the author's problem was actually private property, so...) to actually call the City Hall and politely inform them of the problem, explain how it's dangerous, and ask how "we" can fix it. In all likelihood, they will probably respond immediately and in a positive fashion due to the above reasons. It might not happen overnight like mine did, but eventually they'll want to cover their asses from an ADA lawsuit. For the record, my backup plan would have been a letter to the editor of the local paper, and then talking to an attorney.

lizzard 9y ago
I've successfully done this as well in a smaller town. City Hall engineers sat down with me and looked at accessible routes to school, bus/train station, and the grocery store. They built 7 curb cuts; it cost the city 35K. Every time I saw someone else using those crossings for years afterwards it made me super happy. And, I could take my kid to school without going in the street, in the dark, in the rain... I don't think this works every time but it is definitely worth asking. Another interesting point I found out while going through this process, was that it takes some work for the city to find out who is responsible for particular streets and intersections (It might be a local or state transit agency rather than the city).

supernumerary 9y ago

Vertical Discontinuity baby. Michigan recently passed legislation protecting local municipalities from lawsuits where sidewalks in disrepair are to blame. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2015-2016/billintroduced/House/pdf/2015-HIB-4686.pdf http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2015-2016/billintrod... Gist here: http://www.michiganvotes.org/2015-HB-4686 http://www.michiganvotes.org/2015-HB-4686 While Michigan (esp. Detroit) is exceptional in many respects this kind of legislation whereby neglected infrastructure is no longer a liability for the state is likely to spread. The sidewalks in Detroit are especially heinous. https://iainmait.land/img/photos/1920/street_crossing_2_2017_iain_maitland.jpg https://iainmait.land/img/photos/1920/street_crossing_2_2017...

sol_remmy 9y ago

Funny how no one in this thread even mentions that sidewalks cost a great deal of money to build. "How dare cities in southern states refuse to build sidewalks for their residents! Sidewalks are essential to quality of life!" There is no mention of money. No mention that people in southern cities PREFER lower taxes which means less government services. For anyone from the New England or Colorado or the West Coast: you have great livable cities with lots of amenities but those come at the cost of higher taxes and more regulations. Southern cities may not share your civic culture.

clra 9y ago
While sidewalks appear to be a totally unmanageable burden on the budget, somehow it has room for far more expensive roads and other costly auto-related infrastructure. I don't think it's too much to ask for a little equality here. Not everyone paying taxes drives.
- sol_remmy 9y ago
  > Not everyone paying taxes drives. If this was a city where there were wealthy urbanites who didn't drive, you would be right. If only the poor don't drive, then "Not everyone paying taxes drives" is basically a false statement.
rconti 9y ago
I'm not sure every mile in the suburbs needs sidewalks, but it seems like sort of a necessity in any city. The area referenced is smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

peter303 9y ago

In my town (Denver) ADA lawsuits is practically a competitive sport. Nuisances dont last long because the fine can be more than the remediation cost. And ACLU is a major participant.

memracom 9y ago

Sounds like a good reason to emigrate to Canada. Canadians would never tolerate sidewalks in such horrible condition. And governments in Canada (municipal, provincial, federal) are used to spending money on the wellbeing of citizens. Let's face it, the USA is broken and even if Trump does manage to fix it, the repair work will take many years.

macintux 9y ago

In my city (Indianapolis) there's been a moratorium on new street lights for decades, although that's finally changing. Combining no street lights with crappy (or no) sidewalks is literally deadly. Teenaged girl was killed in a hit and run 100 feet from my front yard a couple of years ago. People in wheelchairs have been hit and killed in other parts of the city. So many ways to improve, so little political pressure to do it.

tmnvix 9y ago

Reminds me of Andres Duany's presentation to San Diego local government officials[1]. It's very funny and very informative. A highlight for me was when he was discussing an artist's impression of what amounts to an urban wasteland and points out that, yes, that lone pedestrian in the picture is "theoretically possible". Well worth a watch. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwd4Lq0Xvgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwd4Lq0Xvgc

ArlenBales 9y ago

The sidewalks in my city are a joke. They're incredibly broken and irregular. The streets have potholes that last for months before filled, if at all. Infrastructure in a lot of cities of the U.S. is so piss poor, and I don't know why it isn't made more a priority in our country.

TKinNC 9y ago
It's all about cost. There have been several articles on HN discussing the problem. One in particular (I think it was a study done in Michigan) stated the average citizen in that city would need to pay an extra $7K in taxes just to break even for existing infrastructure. (ie.... all new projects are halted) EDIT: It was Louisiana and the cost was $8K, here is the study. https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason-your-city-has-no-money https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...

crooked-v 9y ago

The idea that individual property owners should be independently responsible for sidewalk maintenance boggles my mind. I had a hell of a time just getting a metal fire door replaced to comply with my HOA... I dread to think how much time and effort it would take to find a contractor who could put in matching paving slabs for an existing sidewalk even if you wanted to.

ljcrabs 9y ago

Good article, but did anyone notice the design itself? What a beautiful website. Dynamic while still easy to read.

cafard 9y ago

If you cross Chestnut St. NW in Washington, DC, from Western Avenue to Oregon Avenue, you will see "No Sidewalks in Hawthorne" signs, but now also "Yes, Sidewalks in Hawthorne". The No signs are older, and the opposition had some odd arguments--sidewalks would lead to more crime. (Who is that is ready for burglary or robbery, but afraid to walk in the street?) In my own neighborhood there are arguments back and forth. I'd be happy to see sidewalks added where they aren't, but I'd hate to see mature trees damaged.