Intent may be OKish, but execution positively sucks.

[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: picture 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.

Comments

[jadelennox]

I usually pay attention to whether there is signage a sighted person could have used to divert at an earlier curb cut. And it needs to be 4ft wide, I believe.

[pauamma]

"it" being the on-street path?

[jadelennox]

yeah, in the US, anyway. I'm not sure if there's an international standard.

...actually, maybe that's fire code? hang on, going to check.

I was wrong! 4 feet is from fire code. USA accessible path clearances are 36", with exceptions:

Except as provided in 403.5.2 and 403.5.3, the clear width of walking surfaces shall be 36 inches (915 mm) minimum.

EXCEPTION: The clear width shall be permitted to be reduced to 32 inches (815 mm) minimum for a length of 24 inches (610 mm) maximum provided that reduced width segments are separated by segments that are 48 inches (1220 mm) long minimum and 36 inches (915 mm) wide minimum.

with a lot more details about door clearances, turns, etc.

[pauamma]

Added a picture and description.