by eila in Accessibility, Neighborhoods and Squares
Posted on June 10, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Last Modified on June 11, 2008 at 12:30 am
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So, you are a blind pedestrian at Weston and Broadway and you need to cross after getting off the bus.
Because there is no curbcut on the bus stop side of Weston to cross to Dickson, you cross Weston to the corner pictured below.
You rely on the tactile strips to guide you straight into the crosswalk and to the curbcut exactly opposite.
Now, here: how many steps will it take before you’re a smashed pumpkin at rush hour?
All in all, there are 5 incorrectly placed curbcuts just in this one intersection: Two on this side of Weston, one on the other side (near the corner store and bus stop), and three on the Dickson side.
Using DPW Chief Koty’s costing of about $1,500 per curbcut, this intersection alone wasted at least $7,500 of our dollars.
Here are the relevant Building code violations just for this particular curb cut in the foreground:
21.2.1 Curb cuts are required at each corner of each intersection, located within the crosswalk and/or the pedestrian path of travel. Curb cuts shall be perpendicular to the curb at street crossings and each shall have a level landing at the top. At marked crossings, the bottom of the ramp run, exclusive of flared sides, shall be wholly contained with the marked crossing.
No matter how you look at it, this curbcut won’t lead a blind pedestrian safely into the crosswalk. Instead, it leads people smack dab into the City’s mid-crosswalk Pedestrian Safety sign…
21.4 TRANSITIONS
Transitions from curb cuts to walks, gutters, or streets shall be flush or free of changes in level greater than 1⁄2 inch (1⁄2″ = 13mm).
This particular curb cut is not flush with the street; it has a lip underneath that breaks the continuity of travel for wheelchair-mobile and 4-point cane-mobile pedestrians.
BROADWAY & WESTON AVE., WARD 7 SOMERVILLE, MA
So here’s a little 21.2.1 contest:
A. In your pedestrian travels, note whether or not a curbcut with a tactile strip is wholly contained within the marked crosswalk.
B. Jot down the address of every curbcut that violates this particular access building code (21.2.1).
C. Call 3-1-1 or email the City ADA Coordinator (or both) to report sidewalk accessibility problem, and document the time and date of your report.
D. Post your compiled Access Reports list here @ Somerville Voices by 10 p.m. June 18!
The person who files the most (verified)
Curbcut Access Reports
by June 18, 10 p.m.
will receive a complementary dinner for two
at a local (accessible) restaurant!
Good luck- and thanks for caring!
-eila
(see Somerville Journal, May 1, 2008 Alderman’s Notes: Pero: sidewalk ramps causing parking tickets, p. 12)
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Eila, I hate to “pile on”, but none of the guys who did that quality crosswalk spoke english or were legal. I went over and started speaking to a couple of ‘em – to address the crappy way things were getting done — and they were all illegals (no papers and one hinted he can do sidework at one of my properties cheaply as he doesn’t pay taxes). I spoke to a cop doing the detail and he said there was nothing we can do about it. Since they were illegals – we can’t report them and they effectively are now above the law. I guess my reporting them for shoddy work would be a violation of their human rights. What a system we have, huh? I have to ask; What about the elderly? WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN?!?!?!?
Now, instead of wasting more tax $$$$’s – the next time the city paves Broadway, why not just have the city move or extend the crosswalk over a few feet so that “the bottom of the ramp run, exclusive of flared sides, shall be wholly contained with the marked crossing”? Also, we can have the city fix the lip/flush with the street at the same time. NBD.
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Thanks Imux,
Do you remember what day or week you saw this job being done?
IMHO, seems to me that the shoddy worker is local government. The “crappy” part comes in right from the start, when deciders don’t take responsibility to make sure there’s skillful planning and coordination. In the beginning, the job wasn’t designed correctly – then, in the middle, no one cared to ensure that it’s up to specs- and then at the end, we’re left with a mess that doesn’t improve anyone’s life- except perhaps the employer, who didn’t pay a fair wage, didn’t spend the estimated cost on doing the job right, but still got fully reimbursed out of the public’s coffers.
Your suggestion sounds logical, to fix the ramp so it’s flush and move or extend the walkway for now! Eventually, it’s gonna be necessary to make sure both ramps on either side of the crosswalk line up correctly and are logically placed for all users to safely cross….
I can’t guess how many times this mistake alone has been made throughout the city, just since 2004.
Every instance of just this one mistake wastes $1500 of our money- and creates additional liabilities for this city. But the human cost is the biggest burden- lack of public safety, access, and reliance on our deciders.
Since this detail represents time and money wasted due to lack of administrative/in house expertise, perhaps the city’s ’09 Budget should be more rigorously reviewed in terms of avoidable costs!
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Eila, I know it was the same time the new Condos were finishing up as I was (am) thinking of buying that office condo on the ground floor. They wanted like $450K for 2500 sq. ft., so I said “I’ll wait ’till you all get desperate”. So… no firm day of week as I walk by there most days and then back most nights, but often times detour over to PJs so days/weeks seem to slip on by. ;>)
Yes. It is a shame that something meant to solve an issue (folks with disabilities) actually does just the opposite. It is noticeable to the layperson — I too noticed that it don’t line up way back when. Why couldn’t someone with the contractor or city (DPW)? That’s our tax dollars at work though! And can you believe if someone like Obama gets in that he’ll tax us even more for shoddy work like this!???? Scary, huh?
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Imux, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that you don’t actually know whether those workers were undocumented. Why would the workers admit to you, a random guy on the street, that they were? A dubious story.
Plus, it surely doesn’t matter whether they were documented or not in terms of “reporting” them. Even if their work was shoddy, that’s not grounds for criminal enforcement. You can report the work to the city/DPW as you could regardless of their citizenship status. Now, I don’t expect DPW to actually be responsive to your complaint, but that’s another matter. The point is that they wouldn’t be any less responsive if the workers were undocumented.
As far as your tangent into Obama’s tax plan, he wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts for higher income earners. That would affect everyone that makes over $200,000 a year, nearly quadruple the median income in Somerville. I do hope that happens so that we can afford health care and public transit (and accessibility) improvements, among many other things. But you’re right, at the same time, we need to be vigilant about how that money is spent.
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Greg, I have no idea why people (even illegals) open up to me. I’m a pretty outgoing guy and will talk to anyone — maybe that is it. I have the ICE # handy and often ask people I suspect are not here legally what their status is. You’d be surprised at how much people will admit to you if you just ask.
Tangent on Obama’s tax plan? I was just trying to point out how stupid we are to give government more of our tax dollars.
How stupid is the average voter now?
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to believe that taxes at the corporate level won’t be passed down to the consumer level in higher retail prices
▪ Despite 9/11, the average voter is stupid enough to think international terrorists will leave us alone if we leave them alone to plot and plan in peace
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to look at America’s complete ideological, racial, religious and economic divisions and think that a freshman nobody whose done nothing can somehow unite the nation under socialism
▪ The average voter never heard of the Democratic Socialists of America, they don’t know that they are running today’s DNC, or that they have already seated at least (1) self-proclaimed socialist in the U.S. Senate, and at least (63) documented socialists in the U.S. House of Representatives.
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to believe 20 years in an anti-American racist church was an oversight that has nothing to do with the life-long beliefs of the church members
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to think that a man who didn’t notice his pastor was an anti-American racist for 20 years, will catch all the nuances of running the greatest nation on earth for the next four years
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to believe that the best funded campaign in U.S. history is funded by America’s poorest voters in small denominations
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to think that the candidate receiving the most corporate/lobbyist campaign funds is the anti-lobbyist candidate
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to think that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX, PBS and NPR are all unbiased independent news outlets
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to think politicians are to blame for the mess voters created with their votes
▪ The average voter is stupid enough to think socialism is good, so long as it’s democratic
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I’m glad to see conservative elitism out in full force
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Imux’s comment about the average voter is a complete cut and paste from:
The Absurd Report, ‘Are American Voters as Stupid As Democrats Bank On?’ by JB Williams
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