Hacker News Reader

Comment by sroussey | Hacker News Reader

Author discusses their nice daily walks on that street, and questions the need for improvements like sidewalks and ADA compliance.

Author should be thankful to not need the ADA compliance.

View on HN

Even the "improved" sidewalks are barely useful there. Based on my experience (in a very different neighborhood where walking is the default way to get around) I'd be shocked if someone in a wheelchair chose the sidewalk over the street. Even by me (6 ft+ sidewalks, separated from the street, without driveways, with drivers used to looking for pedestrians at crossings, and much busier roads) you almost always see wheelchairs in the street.

Uneven at every driveway and too narrow to get around any obstacles (such as a trash can) make sidewalks like that a horrible experience when you're on wheels. Add in the narrow, quiet streets with slow traffic and the street is very appealing.

Technical ADA compliance doesn't make a good/useful experience.

That just seems like poor design, although admittedly in this case it could be that the lots essentially go to the road. Ideally you would have a grass strip between the road and the path that people can put bins on, park on and so that the driveway won’t make the path uneven.

I would like a post that is clearer on this. Can you get ADA compliance without the full cost of the project? Would that be reasonable?

However, regardless, if you cannot pay for ADA compliant sidewalks with existing tax revenue, then paying for them piecemeal using unsustainable bonds seems like it's only pushing the problem out.

I'm also wondering about this. Maybe some "outside-the-box" ideas could achieve it. Just spitballing here:

If the street were made to be one-way instead of two-way, could it be narrower, leaving room for the sidewalk AND the ditches? Also, it isn't clear from his description, but maybe that would eliminate the need for "additional utilities improvements due to [the sidewalk and widening]".

It would inconvenience the residents on that street and motorists who pass through. But presumably that's better than bankruptcy.

Or here's an even crazier idea: Could the underground drainage be avoided if the city annexed a strip of land from the adjacent properties? That would surely piss them off, but if it were implemented city-wide, as part of a "we're all in this together" kind of campaign to revitalize the city without going bankrupt, maybe it would be more palatable. At least it might seem more "fair" if everyone loses a little land, rather than only some streets. And if owners were compensated monetarily, heck, some might even like it.

Could the underground drainage be avoided if the city annexed a strip of land from the adjacent properties?

This one might not even be that crazy. Utility easements on private property that are large and greatly restrict what the owner can do with the land are fairly common. Your idea seems along those same lines.

One way streets encourage faster driving and make things less safe and welcoming for pedestrians. See the baffling Hayward loop as a worst case example. A highlight from the article

“ Jones told the Pioneer that when he was newly hired as city manager, he thought the better alternative would have been to create an underpass at the “Five Corners” where Mission Boulevard, Foothill Boulevard and Jackson Street meet. However this would have almost doubled the project cost and the city was already under pressure to use state funds to construct something, he said, before the funds are taken back and allocated to other cities.”

https://thepioneeronline.com/19812/showcase/hayward-loop-inf...

"unsustainable bonds" is the foundation of suburban development.

Apparently so and it’s something the articles website is highly critical of.

> Author should be thankful to not need the ADA compliance.

It frustrates me how people use this line to shame anyone who questions the costs of ADA compliance.

There’s a legitimate discussion as to whether it would be socially optimal for that money to be allocated elsewhere. $1.5M could go a long way towards education, community centers, internet infrastructure, or any other public project - and maybe it would go farther than improving wheelchair access on 0.32 miles of sidewalk in a low traffic residential area.

What about the cost of not being ADA compliant, though?

If there is no wheelchair access, how do you get those things to people in wheelchairs?

There is wheelchair access. It's called roads. In a low traffic suburb like that there's no reason roads can't be multi use. In fact in all the low traffic suburbs I've lived in that's exactly how they're used. People walk on them, ride on them, kids play on them, I don't see many wheelchairs but tons of the electric scooter things used by both the disabled and elderly.

Cancel the upgrade, send some of the money to wheelchair users so they can buy a nicer wheelchair, a flag for it, hell a new tv, whatever they want; and everyone would be better off.

Indeed. No one capable of locomotion is excluded here. When there's no sidewalk by a neighborhood street it is generally legal for pedestrians to walk in the street. Typically they are required to walk on the edge of the road facing traffic.

Cars? seems like that is the only real way to get around in this town anyway.

agreed. If there isnt a wheel chair bound person for 3 miles, maybe it's not worth having _that_ specific sidewalk upgraded first. Of course, there will come a day, but does it have to be this project specifically?

The takeaway is that ADA compliance only has value when it's consumed and despite a specific rule accessibility is actually a spectrum that can be balanced in a case by case basis.

I was just thinking about that. If I were in a wheel chair there's no way I'd just roll down the middle of the street like OP does. If a car comes down the street, what am I supposed to do? It doesn't matter if only "people who live on that street use it." That just means people in wheelchairs can't really live on the street

Even where there's good sidewalks people in wheelchairs often just "roll down the middle of the street." It's smoother, easier to be seen (.˙. safer) and you're less likely to get blocked by an unexpected obstacle.

Off topic, but unicode actually has a "therefore" symbol ( ∴ ). Not sure how universal it is, but it exists

It seems reasonable to me that you would want to build high-quality, cost-effective, high-utilization wheelchair-friendly infrastructure in a few areas rather than spend a huge amount of money on low-quality low-traffic infrastructure everywhere.

Sure they can. That street gets like 10 cars a day dude. I'd rather cut a cheque to people in wheelchairs than waste money on rinky dink roads.

And if I'm driving on a street like that and encounter a guy in a wheelchair I'd yield to them until they could yield to me. It's so small that we can easily create ADA compliance by cooperating as individuals, no need to blow a bunch of money to add a sidewalk. Hell they could add speed bumps and stuff to really slow traffic down.

The Dutch have a concept called "woonerf". Basically, the car is a guest on that street and pedestrians have priority. You're only allowed to drive 10mph, and street furniture enforces this quite strictly.

So, a wheelchair riding in the middle of the street? A car is just going to either drive slowly behind him, or pull over to let him pass. Pedestrians have absolute priority, provided they aren't intentionally hindering cars.

Is ADA compliance even so expensive? Making sidewalks a certain width and grade isn't hard nor any more expensive than not doing that, I helped my dad pretty much do this when we repoured his driveway apron ourselves.

The rules seem pretty simple and not expensive to implement if you are pouring the concrete anyway: https://legalbeagle.com/5561359-ada-standards-sidewalks.html

On the other hand, what I notice more often is a lack of ADA maintenance, after the initial construction might have been compliant. Back in the 80s, LA planted a lot of trees which seemed like a great idea. Today, we are no longer planting that type of tree because it has destroyed sidewalks all over town, making it impossible to travel if you needed ADA specifications to get around. When the city repairs the sidewalk, they don't cut down the newly formed 1' skateboard ramp at all, they just fill in the cracks crudely and quickly with asphalt, which pits in no time. I am stumbling and tripping on the sidewalk all of the time, and I don't even have any conditions affecting my mobility.

Easy solution, give the streets back to the people. The use of the phrase "side walk" is telling. We don't need two roads when people should take precedent.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com