Aug. 9th, 2022

pauamma: Cartooney crab wearing hot pink and acid green facemask holding drink with straw (Default)
[personal profile] pauamma
With northern hemisphere summer come sidewalk repairs in northern hemisphere cities. The temporary installations for this one completely fenced off a 30m long section of a sidewalk 2m to 2.5m wide, and further fenced off a section of the street surface about 1m wide. Then, presumably so people in wheelchairs could use the temporary path, they installed ramps. And by "installed ramps", I mean put (on the end I checked) a laminated wood board, resting on the sidewalk edge on one side and with the other edge resting on the street surface. I stepped onto it experimentally, and it perceptibly flexed under my 91kg. I don't know what would happen if someone in a power chair tried to. As it is, I doubt anyone will find out, because the road surface edge of the board is about 40 cm from the fence, leaving (to my untrained eye) way too little clearance to turn and get to the other "ramp" (which I haven't looked at yet). That 40cm clearance also looks too much too narrow to me for someone using a wheelchair to get past the board if they got onto the street surface at the nearby pedestrian crossing, if there's a curb cut there. (There should be, but I can't swear to it.)

I intend to go back there in 2 to 3 hours, take pics, and report it to City Hall as a street hazard. Besides what I mentioned above and the same at the other end, is there anything I missed that should or could usefully go in my report?

ETA: Street surface detour around fenced-off sidewalk, with obstacles to wheelchair usepicture of one "ramp" and the nearby street surface, with a 30cm shoe for scale, shows clearance between board edge on street surface and fence support base is under 50cm.

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