Posted on 10/08/2012 10:41:15 AM PDT by Kid Shelleen
First time hearing those words? The little bumps under your feet are picking the city's pocket.
Truncated domes - also known as "tactile warning strips" - are those bumps the size of elevator call buttons that blister the surface of recently installed ramps at street corners, by order of the feds. The cost to the city - meaning you, the taxpayer - is astronomical.
The outlay is required by changing federal regulations, according to Terry Gillen, director of federal affairs for the city of Philadelphia. She is, in effect, the liaison to President Obama from Mayor Nutter, who has been a ferocious advocate for the president's re-election. --snip-- The cost of installing the now-mandated ramps at each of the city's 22,000 intersections will be $858 million,
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
They tie federal funding for capital improvement street projects to it. You want some of your community’s money back from Washington? Play by their rules.
Then there’s the fines and lawsuits...
They have been installing these “bumps” in Louisville for the past 2-1/2 years. Not only are they a waste of money, but they tear out 50 feet of sidewalk to install a 2’ by 3’ ection of bumps.
” These are mandated by the American with Disabilities Act and there is no way around it.”
Just defund and/or repeal ADA.
I am sorry that some have disabilities, but do not destroy the economy because some few people have a disability.
“Truth is new toilet design has improved the process such that no matter how much water you used in the older toilets, you won’t get as reliable a result as you will with the newer toilets.”
Bullsh*t - uh, sorry, wrong species of feces.
However, most of the low flush toilets are not raving successes, as the thriving market for the old ones proves.
The ‘unseen hand of the market’ disagrees with you, it would appear.
They’ve been obsessing putting those in here in Tucson too. And because the “recommended” slope tends to put them lower than the regular side walk and we don’t want anybody falling off those 2 inch lips they get guardrails too. They screw up traffic at an intersection for 2 weeks putting all this junk in and by the time they’re done it’s harder to walk through it because you have to dodge the stupid railing.
cost benefit analysis? They have only had time to do that on the elderly and medical needs.
It probably SHOULD cost $400 but you know how things are with government contractors. When I’ve seen them getting put in here step 1 is to not only tear out the old sidewalk and curb but also a couple of feet of road. So now you have to replace concrete and tar, and because there’s a hole in the road you have to direct traffic away from the lane, so you need a bunch of pylons... it’s really easy to add a zero to the cost when you do things the government way.
I'm hating over-regulating government more and more every year. In my community, they began cutting curbs at intersections supposedly for wheelchair access. However, they only cut about half of them, and stopped work almost two years ago. They neglected to cut them at the intersections adjacent to schools and parks, and busy intersections where they're most needed, especially for baby strollers.
On my block, some people park cars up on the sidewalk, forcing baby strollers and wheelchairs into the street. Complaints to City Hall go no where. I watched a neighbor in a wheelchair get a traffic ticket from a police officer, because he was driving his wheelchair in the street to get around a car. I went up and complained to the cop as he wrote the ticket, telling him to do something about the cars on the sidewalk. He gave me a look like he would arrest me, and said nothing and gave the ticket. I'm hating government and the cops; they just don't care about the public any more.
It cost's quite a bit more than that to install those. The entire corner of the sidewalk at the intersection has to be demolished and a new one installed. You couldn't even get the old concrete jackhammered out for that.
Just to clarify, my cost is for the same work out here in eastern Washington State, and the tactile inserts cost about $400 per ramp. To upgrade to ADA standard you need to replace the entire concrete panel middle panel of the ramp. There are actually three parts to the ramp, the wings (on on either side) and the ramp which is also called the landing.
You have to figure in removal of existing sidewalk, traffic control, new concrete, tactile panels, mobilization (bonding costs and permits) and re prepping the base rock under the slab. Typical city ramp should cost no more than $1500 each, and the more you have and the proximity to each other the cheaper it will be.
Other cost to consider would be if the sidewalk and curb/gutter were poured together (monolithic) which may require pouring the curb and gutter first, then pouring the sidewalk later. It there is a catch basin in the gutter pan than that has to be figured in as well.
But if this is in Philly than the cement finshers union is propably tacking on their sprecial fees...
My dad was wheel chair bound his last 7 years and hated everything the gubmint planners said was needed to provide him access. He said not one of them was probably ever in a wheel chair.
If I'm not mistaken, I believe Philadelphia has already done the curb cuts and installed the ramps. I recall Philly having a big issue with the ADA over this about 10-12 years ago.
If I'm not mistaken, I believe Philadelphia has already done the curb cuts and installed the ramps. I recall Philly having a big issue with the ADA over this about 10-12 years ago.
You are correct about the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 being the original source of this issue. Spawned by the Democrat Congress but signed by GHW Bush in 1990.
Every ramped walk to an intersection built in the last 22 years should have had the feature built in when built.
However, so many machine run cities have failed to do so and now Obama is mandating compliance programs. You are right on the cost as well — a single ramp can have these added for less than a grand in most cases. A whole intersection with 8 ramps (two on each corner) it might get down to 500 bucks a ramp. Now keep in mind that when you are building a block of sidewalks, you need this for any curb to be cut by a ramp but you have a much larger area of cost to apportion it against.
It is actually one of the cheaper ADA construction adds to public and private work mandated by the Federal law for the last 22 years. Look at some of the ramps, added handicap parking spaces, handicap signs, long winding wheel chair ramps and other improvements and more cost is in these.
This article is simply a run down city is now finally trying to show what the cost would be to avoid doing what they should have had already half accomplished if they had started 22 years ago.
“Broom the walks...period”
That makes way too much sense.
My grand parents walk ways are broomed and that works just fine.
These aren’t really for the improvement of wheel chair access. They allow the blind and near blind to navigate sidewalks and determine when they are approaching a street.
Likewise, if the audible features to walk signals saying, “walk...walk...walk” are used, blind people can somewhat get around an area they are familiar with to walk for access near work or home even in urban areas.
“My dad was wheel chair bound his last 7 years and hated everything the gubmint planners said was needed to provide him access. He said not one of them was probably ever in a wheel chair.”
Based upon the experientally validated insight of your father, the solution is clear - break the legs of every gubment planner.
It might not help, but it couldn’t hurt. And, it would be so much fun!
Apologies to Sam Clements.
I can agree with him on that, I was in a wheelchair for 3 years. Things look a lot different when you’re looking everybody square in the butt.
My dad is in the city planning department. I tried to get him to convince his bosses that the person checking to make sure buildings were accessable should have to live in a chair for a year first.
Most cities get a lot of funding from the feds, and every dollar of that funding comes with strings attached. If a city wants to defy a federal “suggestion”, it first must untangle itself from them financially. There was a supreme court decision a few years ago that said that if a state/county/city/municipality/whatever does not recieve federal funding, then they are not required to enforce federal codes, and can in fact tell the feds to butt out in cases where the codes differ.
(If I’m remembering that right, it’s been a few years.)
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