Hacker News Reader

Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Did you read the entire article? The main problems the woman are having are with lack of curb cuts, lack of sidewalks, and obstructions in the sidewalk, even on new construction. This has nothing to do with "nature wearing things down" and everything to do with them simply not being built correctly.

Some of the mentioned sidewalks are one hundred years old, and are thoroughly decayed as a result. I bet if every road you had to drive on was in that condition then you'd be upset about it and would demand repairs, rather than just throwing up your hands at the inevitability of entropy. Maybe you want to go live out in primitive conditions in the jungle somewhere, but the rest of us want civilization. Your logic applies equally to roads as it does to sidewalks, so should we just give up on them as well?

View on HN

> Your logic applies equally to roads as it does to sidewalks, so should we just give up on them as well?

No, but I wouldn't drive a low-riding sports car if I lived in an area with crappy roads. I'd buy a pickup truck with good suspension and large knobby tires.

The problem is that accessibility devices don't have the option of "good suspension and large knobby tires".

Every problem that woman experiences is because her wheelchair is not built for the environment she operates in. We need better wheelchairs. Yelling at local state government to fix sidewalks will not work. There are millions of miles of sidewalks to fix and hundreds of thousands of people responsible for them. You can't change that quickly. But you can build a better wheelchair.

> There are millions of miles of sidewalks to fix and hundreds of thousands of people responsible for them.

Again, I don't think you read the article. The sidewalks are in the best condition in cities like Boston, where they are the responsibility of the city. Cities are already responsible for constructing and maintaining roads; is it really so crazy that they do the same for the sidewalks that are built adjacent to roads? In what way does it make sense having hundreds of thousands of individual owners of patches of sidewalk 20 m long? You're throwing away all economies of scale there.

Good sidewalks benefit everyone. I've almost injured myself from tripping over a particularly uneven patch of sidewalk, and many people have actually injured themselves. The elderly and the blind who walk won't benefit from better wheelchairs, but they certainly will benefit from better, flatter sidewalks. Everyone benefits.

The brick sidewalks in Boston are notoriously uneven - very easy to trip if you aren't paying attention

Most sidewalks in Boston are normal concrete, not brick. I've only seen the brick in some of the historic sections.

The good wheelchair was too expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT

And there are hundreds of thousands of un(der)employed decaying middle class men.

Who used to fix sidewalks among other things.

These are new (enough) sidewalks in an area that is highly developed.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com