Unsafe but pretty ramps

[firecat]

Here is a pretty set of stairs that incorporates a zig-zagging ramp. With no handrails.

http://blog.firstreference.com/2012/07/17/pretty-hazards-the-accessible-built-environment/

Comments

[staranise]

Interesting article! That's the provincial courthourse in Vancouver--the area's pretty littered with elevators to underground areas, so ironically, the ramp really isn't the most-used access route.

[amadi]

In the U.S. that would pretty much be illegal, as it should be. What a nightmare.

[jadey]

Yeah, the first time I came across that in Vancouver (I thought it was the downtown UBC location, not the courthouse? At least, that's what my memory tells me - maybe there's more than one though) I thought it was a great example of incorporating accessibility in design. D: I have since been educated! I believe that there were elevators nearby so the area was not inaccessible, but I can confirm as someone who is fully mobile that it's an intimidating and off-putting stair to walk even in that condition. Definitely not a blueprint for accessible design.

[treeowl]

I wouldn't want some eight-year-old in a wheelchair to try using that decorative ramp...

[zdashamber]

Stairs are already the most deadly part of a building, I gather. Stairs without handrails, that are irregularly interrupted with tilted landings, are insane for *everyone*.

[gehayi]

Oh, really? Take a look at a set of stairs built two years ago where I live. This is how you get from the town center to a large new shopping area called Blue Back Square.

There are no ramps; anyone in a wheelchair has to wheel herself past the stairs to the corner (and you can't SEE the corner from the stairs) and then down one long, steep and very narrow block that is set on a hill. The only other alternative--and it is not always feasible--is to cut through the library and use the library's elevator, going down to the parking garage and going from there to Blue Back Square. Of course, the library is not open every day or at all hours that someone disabled might be shopping, but who cares about that?

The stairs themselves are marble and slippery, making them a hazard to the elderly, to small children, and to anyone using a cane or walker. The stairs are particularly hazardous in rainy, snowy and icy weather, as well as in autumn when the stairs are strewn with leaves. The handrails only exist on the stairs, not on the three landings, and are wonderful conductors of heat, which makes them almost impossible to hold on to without burning your hands.

They are very pretty stairs, decorated with flowers and hedges and mosaics on nearby walls. But they aren't accessible. (Then again, neither are the shops or banks in the area. Everything has heavy doors and no handicapped buttons.)

Americans With Disabilities Act, my ass.

[lacey]

I am fully mobile, but I can trip over air even when I'm paying 100% attention to walking, and my very first thought when I saw that for the first time was that I would be damn near guaranteed to go airborne with the stair interruptions at inconsistent distances. Mostly it's that I can be clumsy but also that I have balance issues going back to a knee injury a few years ago and I can't aways self-correct in time. If it's that bad for me, I shudder for people forced to use those ramps.

[lauredhel]

Yikes, there are zillions of these godsforsaken things!

http://twistedsifter.com/2012/06/ramps-blended-and-integrated-into-stairs/

*hides in a corner*