5 ms·

There’s lots of stupid rules around sidewalks and lane striping. You need to do an ADA evaluation, remediate any findings, etc. A project in my city that resul

There’s lots of stupid rules around sidewalks and lane striping. You need to do an ADA evaluation, remediate any findings, etc. A project in my city that resulted in adding a textured crosswalk pad, new stripes and a beg button cost $1.4M and took 3 years.

mhalle 4y ago
"Stupid rules" for one person are what enable another person to live an independent life. The Americans with Disabilities (ADA) act has been law since 1990 and codifies mobility and access as civil rights in the US. ADA does add to the costs of projects, but so does, say, safety code compliance. It's the law, and it exists for a good reason. As for the example of a minor accessibility project costing $1.4M and taking 3 years, I would suggest that there is probably more to the story that helps explain the cost or the time.
- Robotbeat 4y ago
  I bet closing the sidewalk for longer is much worse for disabled people.
- bombcar 4y ago
  The rules are fine, the stupidity is latent and revealed: 1. New construction must meet ADA requirements. 2. Old construction can remain. 3. Repairing broken old construction requires meeting ADA requirements. So between 2 and 3 you end up with broken old construction that cannot be repaired to "what it was" because repairs must meet ADA requirements. Each step makes sense on its own, but combined they result in something worse (in particular) even though overall it works out better.
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    What's the alternative that reaches eventual compliance everywhere on a shorter span than "wait for the grandfathered buildings to be bought and demolished" though?
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      Impose a supplemental property tax, increasing over time, on buildings out of compliance with current requirements, so that upgrade or replacement becomes comparatively more desirable vs. doing neither than it currently is. Or, just have a fixed window to achieve compliance or the building is condemned.
      - briandear 4y ago
        Cool. Let’s start with NYC subway stations. Public infrastructure should be ADA compliant yet NYC permitting will hammer a small business for a toilet two inches out of compliance when the city itself has massive issues that are ignored.
    - londons_explore 4y ago
      A daily fine for everything noncompliant. Make the fine approximately proportional to the number of potential users impeded. Then a popular crosswalk gets upgraded before a rural crosswalk that nobody uses anyway. An easy upgrade is done before a hard upgrade. Sometimes even new stuff might be built non-compliant if, for example, there are other substantial benefits that outweigh the fine. Just burn the fine revenue. (Burning money is the inverse of printing money, helps reduce inflation, and means nobody has an incentive to maximize fines)
      - lukas099 4y ago
        I have trouble imagining anyone convincing a city to 'burn revenue', even if it's a good idea in principle. Maybe the next best thing is applying it to a negative income tax so that it goes to the lowest-income residents.
        bombcar 4y ago
        It's a reference to Modern Money Theory which states that a (federal) tax is disconnected from spending because the government prints money. But ADA stuff is almost always handled on a local, not even state, level.
  - thaeli 4y ago
    The local maximum of "fix it but don't improve it" is a problem, and the requirement for major reconstruction to be done to current codes is foundational to almost all building codes. Note that small repairs and routine maintenance don't activate this requirement - it's activated when major work is being done, and there is a percentage of total project cost cap to the requirements. If the new local maximum is "well, we won't fix it at all then" - the usual building code solution is property maintenance codes that mandate repairs.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      The buildings often get repaired/updated pretty quickly - it's the items like sidewalks that are under the purview of the government itself that "slip through the cracks".
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > ADA does add to the costs of projects Not in the long run. ADA just forces better designs. Retrofits are costly. > As for the example of a minor accessibility project costing $1.4M and taking 3 years, I would suggest that there is probably more to the story that helps explain the cost or the time. Committees, political turf wars, getting funding for the project through grants (that are complicated to apply for, that's why you need a dedicated bureaucrat to do it!). Then there's union rules since construction workers from the city are government employees. That's half a million in employee's salaries right there and not a single concrete steps has been taken yet!
  - LanceH 4y ago
    > ADA does add to the costs of projects I'm not going to argue that it isn't necessary or right. But it absolutely costs more. A bathroom stall, for example, literally takes up more space, and that costs. A ramp and stairs takes up more space, materials and time and that costs. There are things which are right to do, but disingenuous arguments to support them aren't helpful.
- VHRanger 4y ago
  Permitting process hell is the explanation.
- starkparker 4y ago
  Replacing curb ramps can mean relocating the curb cut, which can mean relocating the underground sensor loops. Adding a beg button can mean upgrading or replacing the signal control module, which could mean replacing the housing if it's not large enough for the new module. (Audible-tactile buttons and controllers themselves cost $5-6k each, just for parts.) Aside from that, the issue with ADA compliance costs isn't when a municipality or DOT pays for them. It's when they remove the crosswalk entirely because they decide compliance isn't affordable enough.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  As implemented ADA compliance requires that even trivial changes to a moderate complexity intersection require an engineering study at $300-500k, minimum. There are other requirements as well relating to multimodal travel depending online the funding source. All the while, we had an increasingly dangerous intersection with no visible crosswalks and outdated signals for years. The stupid isn’t ADA, it’s compliance activity. Cities and towns cannot afford the engineers to meet the standards, so the Federal and State governments fund projects. So there’s no framework of best practices beyond the state standards - each project is a special snowflake.
- coryrc 4y ago
  The allowed slope for a ramp according ADA 1.5-3%. The recommended slope for drainage is 3-6%. Better hope you're really fucking precise. Oh, your road itself is at a slope greater than 3%? Oops, you can't legally do it! It's okay to have standards. It's not okay if they're bullshit.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    You sure? ADA ramp max slope should be 1:12, i.e. 8.33% which is (IMHO) reasonable. https://www.ada-compliance.com/ada-compliance/ada-ramp https://www.ada-compliance.com/ada-compliance/ada-ramp
  - Loughla 4y ago
    Don't make things up. Recommended slope for drainage on concrete and asphalt is .25-.5:12, or 1/4" to 1/2" over 1' of length. Recommended slope for wheelchair ramps are 1-1.5:12, or 1" to 1.5" over 1' of length.
- asdff 4y ago
  IMO ADA is probably a net harm at this point. When I look at the sidewalks here in socal, where 50 years ago they planted these rooty trees that make the region look like a tony hawk game today versus something you'd be able to get a wheelchair across, I'm starting to suspect its all ironically ADA's fault. They put the costs to meet their criteria so high that cities find it a better bet to just absorb lawsuits and not do anything than to actually make their cities manageable for disabled people. We need a more practical ada, that isn't nearly so costly to implement, so cities don't find it financially sensible to just sit on their hands forever.
MaxMatti 4y ago
Yes but you can do all that before tearing open the street or sidewalk
ahoy 4y ago
My dad's been physically disabled my entire life. Those "stupid" ADA rules make it possible for him to navigate public spaces
ikiris 4y ago
How dare those projects be forced to checks notes accommodate disabled people. Sometimes the comments on this site are just insufferable.
- briandear 4y ago
  However there should be a balance. Look at parking lots — the ratio of disabled spaces to standard spaces is not the same ratio as disabled people to non-disabled people. And sometimes it’s ridiculous: drive through ATMs with braille for instance. Private motel swimming pools requiring wheelchair lifts. That extreme additional cost means that many motels just won’t have a swimming pool at all — so everyone is worse off. But you can’t charge disabled people a swimming pool surcharge since that discriminatory. So it raises costs for everyone. By the way, I am referring to private building codes, not taxpayer-funded projects like sidewalks.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    Do you suppose that perhaps disabled people take longer to shop? Certainly you’ve heard of Little’s Law if you hang out in HN?
  - lukas099 4y ago
    It probably costs less to have drive through ATMs with braille, because they can reuse the braille signage from the non-drive through ATMs.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Other things that can add cost fast are having too many elevators. I've been in 4 story buildings with 4 separate elevator shafts before that didn't have nearly the population or staff to ever get more than two moving at once. That just means higher rent to make a return on those 4 shafts mandated by some ordinance, which probably hurts you especially if you can't work and are living cheaply on disability. A lot of ordinances have been written with no understanding of how it would look in practice or the costs to implement them in the market and what that will mean for people who have to rent these units.
  - 4y ago
PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
A few years ago, my daughter (a young person) ended up in a wheelchair and/or on crutches for several weeks while recovering from surgery. It is moments like that when you realize that the scope of beneficiaries of the ADA is: all of us Put differently, if you live long enough, you can pretty much guarantee that you will benefit from the facilities the ADA requires at least once (and possibly for a more extended period than my daughter did). It all looks like extra cost for little benefit until you can see it through the eyes of someone who actually needs this stuff, at which point it becomes at least a valuable and at best a life-enabling set of features. And the chances are good that you will be one of the people, assuming you live a long and healthy life.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Just move a cart around and have a little bit of imagination.

mhalle 4y ago

"Stupid rules" for one person are what enable another person to live an independent life. The Americans with Disabilities (ADA) act has been law since 1990 and codifies mobility and access as civil rights in the US. ADA does add to the costs of projects, but so does, say, safety code compliance. It's the law, and it exists for a good reason. As for the example of a minor accessibility project costing $1.4M and taking 3 years, I would suggest that there is probably more to the story that helps explain the cost or the time.

Robotbeat 4y ago
I bet closing the sidewalk for longer is much worse for disabled people.
bombcar 4y ago
The rules are fine, the stupidity is latent and revealed: 1. New construction must meet ADA requirements. 2. Old construction can remain. 3. Repairing broken old construction requires meeting ADA requirements. So between 2 and 3 you end up with broken old construction that cannot be repaired to "what it was" because repairs must meet ADA requirements. Each step makes sense on its own, but combined they result in something worse (in particular) even though overall it works out better.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  What's the alternative that reaches eventual compliance everywhere on a shorter span than "wait for the grandfathered buildings to be bought and demolished" though?
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    Impose a supplemental property tax, increasing over time, on buildings out of compliance with current requirements, so that upgrade or replacement becomes comparatively more desirable vs. doing neither than it currently is. Or, just have a fixed window to achieve compliance or the building is condemned.
    - briandear 4y ago
      Cool. Let’s start with NYC subway stations. Public infrastructure should be ADA compliant yet NYC permitting will hammer a small business for a toilet two inches out of compliance when the city itself has massive issues that are ignored.
  - londons_explore 4y ago
    A daily fine for everything noncompliant. Make the fine approximately proportional to the number of potential users impeded. Then a popular crosswalk gets upgraded before a rural crosswalk that nobody uses anyway. An easy upgrade is done before a hard upgrade. Sometimes even new stuff might be built non-compliant if, for example, there are other substantial benefits that outweigh the fine. Just burn the fine revenue. (Burning money is the inverse of printing money, helps reduce inflation, and means nobody has an incentive to maximize fines)
    - lukas099 4y ago
      I have trouble imagining anyone convincing a city to 'burn revenue', even if it's a good idea in principle. Maybe the next best thing is applying it to a negative income tax so that it goes to the lowest-income residents.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        It's a reference to Modern Money Theory which states that a (federal) tax is disconnected from spending because the government prints money. But ADA stuff is almost always handled on a local, not even state, level.
- thaeli 4y ago
  The local maximum of "fix it but don't improve it" is a problem, and the requirement for major reconstruction to be done to current codes is foundational to almost all building codes. Note that small repairs and routine maintenance don't activate this requirement - it's activated when major work is being done, and there is a percentage of total project cost cap to the requirements. If the new local maximum is "well, we won't fix it at all then" - the usual building code solution is property maintenance codes that mandate repairs.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    The buildings often get repaired/updated pretty quickly - it's the items like sidewalks that are under the purview of the government itself that "slip through the cracks".
908B64B197 4y ago
> ADA does add to the costs of projects Not in the long run. ADA just forces better designs. Retrofits are costly. > As for the example of a minor accessibility project costing $1.4M and taking 3 years, I would suggest that there is probably more to the story that helps explain the cost or the time. Committees, political turf wars, getting funding for the project through grants (that are complicated to apply for, that's why you need a dedicated bureaucrat to do it!). Then there's union rules since construction workers from the city are government employees. That's half a million in employee's salaries right there and not a single concrete steps has been taken yet!
- LanceH 4y ago
  > ADA does add to the costs of projects I'm not going to argue that it isn't necessary or right. But it absolutely costs more. A bathroom stall, for example, literally takes up more space, and that costs. A ramp and stairs takes up more space, materials and time and that costs. There are things which are right to do, but disingenuous arguments to support them aren't helpful.
VHRanger 4y ago
Permitting process hell is the explanation.
starkparker 4y ago
Replacing curb ramps can mean relocating the curb cut, which can mean relocating the underground sensor loops. Adding a beg button can mean upgrading or replacing the signal control module, which could mean replacing the housing if it's not large enough for the new module. (Audible-tactile buttons and controllers themselves cost $5-6k each, just for parts.) Aside from that, the issue with ADA compliance costs isn't when a municipality or DOT pays for them. It's when they remove the crosswalk entirely because they decide compliance isn't affordable enough.
Spooky23 4y ago
As implemented ADA compliance requires that even trivial changes to a moderate complexity intersection require an engineering study at $300-500k, minimum. There are other requirements as well relating to multimodal travel depending online the funding source. All the while, we had an increasingly dangerous intersection with no visible crosswalks and outdated signals for years. The stupid isn’t ADA, it’s compliance activity. Cities and towns cannot afford the engineers to meet the standards, so the Federal and State governments fund projects. So there’s no framework of best practices beyond the state standards - each project is a special snowflake.
coryrc 4y ago
The allowed slope for a ramp according ADA 1.5-3%. The recommended slope for drainage is 3-6%. Better hope you're really fucking precise. Oh, your road itself is at a slope greater than 3%? Oops, you can't legally do it! It's okay to have standards. It's not okay if they're bullshit.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  You sure? ADA ramp max slope should be 1:12, i.e. 8.33% which is (IMHO) reasonable. https://www.ada-compliance.com/ada-compliance/ada-ramp https://www.ada-compliance.com/ada-compliance/ada-ramp
- Loughla 4y ago
  Don't make things up. Recommended slope for drainage on concrete and asphalt is .25-.5:12, or 1/4" to 1/2" over 1' of length. Recommended slope for wheelchair ramps are 1-1.5:12, or 1" to 1.5" over 1' of length.
asdff 4y ago
IMO ADA is probably a net harm at this point. When I look at the sidewalks here in socal, where 50 years ago they planted these rooty trees that make the region look like a tony hawk game today versus something you'd be able to get a wheelchair across, I'm starting to suspect its all ironically ADA's fault. They put the costs to meet their criteria so high that cities find it a better bet to just absorb lawsuits and not do anything than to actually make their cities manageable for disabled people. We need a more practical ada, that isn't nearly so costly to implement, so cities don't find it financially sensible to just sit on their hands forever.

MaxMatti 4y ago

Yes but you can do all that before tearing open the street or sidewalk

ahoy 4y ago

My dad's been physically disabled my entire life. Those "stupid" ADA rules make it possible for him to navigate public spaces

ikiris 4y ago

How dare those projects be forced to checks notes accommodate disabled people. Sometimes the comments on this site are just insufferable.

briandear 4y ago
However there should be a balance. Look at parking lots — the ratio of disabled spaces to standard spaces is not the same ratio as disabled people to non-disabled people. And sometimes it’s ridiculous: drive through ATMs with braille for instance. Private motel swimming pools requiring wheelchair lifts. That extreme additional cost means that many motels just won’t have a swimming pool at all — so everyone is worse off. But you can’t charge disabled people a swimming pool surcharge since that discriminatory. So it raises costs for everyone. By the way, I am referring to private building codes, not taxpayer-funded projects like sidewalks.
- hinkley 4y ago
  Do you suppose that perhaps disabled people take longer to shop? Certainly you’ve heard of Little’s Law if you hang out in HN?
- lukas099 4y ago
  It probably costs less to have drive through ATMs with braille, because they can reuse the braille signage from the non-drive through ATMs.
- asdff 4y ago
  Other things that can add cost fast are having too many elevators. I've been in 4 story buildings with 4 separate elevator shafts before that didn't have nearly the population or staff to ever get more than two moving at once. That just means higher rent to make a return on those 4 shafts mandated by some ordinance, which probably hurts you especially if you can't work and are living cheaply on disability. A lot of ordinances have been written with no understanding of how it would look in practice or the costs to implement them in the market and what that will mean for people who have to rent these units.
- 4y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

A few years ago, my daughter (a young person) ended up in a wheelchair and/or on crutches for several weeks while recovering from surgery. It is moments like that when you realize that the scope of beneficiaries of the ADA is: all of us Put differently, if you live long enough, you can pretty much guarantee that you will benefit from the facilities the ADA requires at least once (and possibly for a more extended period than my daughter did). It all looks like extra cost for little benefit until you can see it through the eyes of someone who actually needs this stuff, at which point it becomes at least a valuable and at best a life-enabling set of features. And the chances are good that you will be one of the people, assuming you live a long and healthy life.

hinkley 4y ago
Just move a cart around and have a little bit of imagination.