4 ms·

Baby strollers are not accounted for enough ! One might wonder (wrongly) why everyone should care about the special and expensive needs of a few (or old) peopl

Baby strollers are not accounted for enough ! One might wonder (wrongly) why everyone should care about the special and expensive needs of a few (or old) people when designing public spaces. But a majority will actually need to use these spaces with a baby stroller. Not a few. Baby strollers are a driving power of our society! Enable them!

tonyarkles 1mo ago
And to keep the loop going, stroller-accessible spaces are also walker-accessible spaces and cart-accessible spaces. Worked at a computer store in the early 00s. Our rented retail space had a wheelchair ramp and there were a few elderly regulars who would show up with a desktop PC in the basket of their rolling walkers for repairs. More than once they thanked us for having the ramp because the computer itself was way too heavy for them to carry from the parking lot.
apothegm 1mo ago
Not to mention luggage. I find it hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that rolling luggage became common shortly after curb cuts and wheelchair ramps did.
- mhb 1mo ago
  Really? Both strollers and wheels on luggage are pretty nice to have even if you have to somehow negotiate curbs. So, I think it is a coincidence.
  - apothegm 1mo ago
    And yet strollers predate rolling luggage by over a century. (Even 2.5 centuries depending on which sources you trust.)
    - mhb 1mo ago
      The rolling luggage is primarily useful in the vicinity of airports. Inside airports there were no curbs. And I don't think people are going on long journeys through downtown areas with their luggage. I think you have a better argument asserting that rolling bags were facilitated by cheap polyurethane skate wheels.
      - apothegm 1mo ago
        There were fewer ramps and more stairs in airports and their parking garages prior to the 90s, due to the ACA. And people drag luggage around on city streets all the time. Many tourist destinations are pedestrian cities even outside their most central downtown areas. And luggage also needs to be dragged around hotels — and in suburban areas their absurdly large parking lots. The skate wheels are a plausible argument, though.
- account42 1mo ago
  Those are even worse because the tiny wheels do not take well to cobblestone or gravel surfaces that strollers handle just fine.
my-huge-pony 1mo ago
In fact, in a way, basically everyone will use a baby stroller at some point in their life (at least as a passenger). I personally never noticed this before becoming a parent, but there's a lot of spaces that are "almost" stroller friendly, but for some reason there is a small obstacle that would not be expensive to remove (if accounted for during planning). For example, a few steps that could easily be a ramp, blocks of flats with a lift that is accessible after ascending a few steps, even high shop entrances. For me it's not a problem, because I can easily carry stroller with a baby inside up, but for most mothers I know this is usually a huge or unsurmountable obstacle.

tonyarkles 1mo ago

And to keep the loop going, stroller-accessible spaces are also walker-accessible spaces and cart-accessible spaces. Worked at a computer store in the early 00s. Our rented retail space had a wheelchair ramp and there were a few elderly regulars who would show up with a desktop PC in the basket of their rolling walkers for repairs. More than once they thanked us for having the ramp because the computer itself was way too heavy for them to carry from the parking lot.

apothegm 1mo ago

Not to mention luggage. I find it hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that rolling luggage became common shortly after curb cuts and wheelchair ramps did.

mhb 1mo ago
Really? Both strollers and wheels on luggage are pretty nice to have even if you have to somehow negotiate curbs. So, I think it is a coincidence.
- apothegm 1mo ago
  And yet strollers predate rolling luggage by over a century. (Even 2.5 centuries depending on which sources you trust.)
  - mhb 1mo ago
    The rolling luggage is primarily useful in the vicinity of airports. Inside airports there were no curbs. And I don't think people are going on long journeys through downtown areas with their luggage. I think you have a better argument asserting that rolling bags were facilitated by cheap polyurethane skate wheels.
    - apothegm 1mo ago
      There were fewer ramps and more stairs in airports and their parking garages prior to the 90s, due to the ACA. And people drag luggage around on city streets all the time. Many tourist destinations are pedestrian cities even outside their most central downtown areas. And luggage also needs to be dragged around hotels — and in suburban areas their absurdly large parking lots. The skate wheels are a plausible argument, though.
account42 1mo ago
Those are even worse because the tiny wheels do not take well to cobblestone or gravel surfaces that strollers handle just fine.

my-huge-pony 1mo ago

In fact, in a way, basically everyone will use a baby stroller at some point in their life (at least as a passenger). I personally never noticed this before becoming a parent, but there's a lot of spaces that are "almost" stroller friendly, but for some reason there is a small obstacle that would not be expensive to remove (if accounted for during planning). For example, a few steps that could easily be a ramp, blocks of flats with a lift that is accessible after ascending a few steps, even high shop entrances. For me it's not a problem, because I can easily carry stroller with a baby inside up, but for most mothers I know this is usually a huge or unsurmountable obstacle.