Michael Kaplan on accessible curb cuts/sidewalk cutouts

[pne]

A wheelchair user's view on sidewalk cutouts and how they could be made more accessible (includes pictures of some reasonable-though-not-great and some bad situations)

Comments

[kelly_holden]

Is it just me, or do the cutouts in those pictures almost look like they've been deliberately put away from where non-wheel-using people will choose to walk? It's not like walking up or down a short ramp like a cutout is any inconvenience, even if walking up or down the ramp equivalent of a flight of stairs some times can be.

[jalendavi_lady]

The only time they've ever been an inconvenience to me is either when they aren't marked well enough for me to see the height difference when walking toward one on the sidewalk, or when they've been that insanely bumpy sort that is extremely uncomfortable to walk on (and I'd imagine feel like washboards to anyone rolling over them).

[lilacsigil]

A ramp - even a small cutout - can be difficult for people with balance problems, though that could be helped simply with better marking. I would be surprised if that was the reason that the cut-out were shoved off to the side, though!

[azurelunatic]

I will sometimes seek out the ramp, if it's a high curb and/or my knee is acting up.

[adrian_turtle]

Many intersections have established paths for walkers, before they put in ramps and curb-cuts for wheelchair users. Especially at old intersections, there are often big posts near the corner--supporting streetlights or traffic lights or street signs. Sometimes they block part of a walkway, and walkers just go around. Sometimes they're beside a 30" wide sidewalk, where walkers hardly notice...but they complicate the problem of putting in a ramp that has to be 40" wide.

I can't know what happened with these particular intersections, because I don't know the exact dimensions. Sometimes "deliberately" putting a ramp off to the side is not so much a choice to keep groups of people apart, as a deliberate choice to put a 40" new construction in 40" of open space (rather than trying to move big heavy objects to make room elsewhere.) If the curb cuts were installed when the intersection was built, rather than doing it as a retrofit, it would just be bad design.