ADA Curb Cut No Longer Compliant After Street Resurfaced
The city has been resurfacing several streets downtown. Initially they were grinding up the old asphalt in the evenings, forgetting people live downtown. After people complained they shifted the schedule so the noisy grinding work was done during daylight and the new asphalt laid after 5pm.
With the top most layer of asphalt missing for a few days it presented some challenges for me & my wheelchair. The biggest issue was avoiding the man hole covers that were now suddenly sticking up but still in the crosswalk. But it was temporary and I managed by changing my route or picking crosswalks that were less problematic.
One of the streets that was resurfaced was 11th. A few corners along 11th still lack an ADA ramp. For example the city has the top two floors at the building at 1015 Locust which is on the NE corner of 11th & Locust. The same corner lacks an ADA curb cut. The other three corners have cuts but that doesn’t help when the direction you want to go doesn’t.
BTW, corner ramps suck! They were basically a cheap way for cities to comply with the ADA — building one ramp to serve two directions rather than building two ramps at each corner — one per side per crosswalk. It did allow more curb cuts to be built with limited funds so that is a good thing. The trouble is now getting people to stop insisting the curb cut must be pushed to the very corner.
The problem with the curb cut at the very corner is that is it not in the natural line of travel down the sidewalk. All the time now I’m having to continually maneuver to the outside corners of the sidewalk. Not so bad when the sidewalks are empty but when others are around it often means I’m crossing in front of them or having to stop to cross behind them.
But these are also dangerous on streets with no curb lane. With traffic driving in the outside lane near the curb and these corner ramps means those of us in wheelchairs are being forced out near or, in some cases, in the travel lane of moving traffic. Talk about a sitting target! But this post is supposed to be about a single ramp that got worse after the street was repaved so let me get on with the main topic.
Above is the corner curb cut at the SE corner of 11th & Washington Ave.  As you can see the street now casts a shadow as it dips down to meet the ramp. It didn’t do this before. The ADA has guidelines on the slope of both the ramp and of the adjacent street. The street can of course go downhill as needed but I’m talking about the “crown” ot the street — how high it is at the middle and how much does it angle off to the curbs.
Excessive slopes present a number of issues. Those using manual chairs can have a harder time getting up the slope. In the case above the slope is steep and sudden. In my power chair I feel like I’m going to tip backwards, the slope is that steep. Manual chairs often have anti-tippers to prevent falling backwards (little extra wheels at the back that prevent tipping back) but electric chairs have no such devices. So with anti-tippers in the above situation a person may find as they try to cross that curb cut because as they go up the slope their anti-tippers may catch on the backside. This point is also now more prone to hold water.
My guess is the crew just put down too much asphalt in this section and didn’t realize the implications of their actions.
Git ‘er done – get it flat, and move on down the road.
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It costs more to remove the old asphalt before putting on new than just putting down new. Plus you have all those motorists complaining about having to dodge manhole covers for a few days. (Conversely, you now have to listen to those same motorists complaning about all those instant potholes when manholes cover are left exposed with just an overlay – you really can’t win.) Bottom line, this was cheaper – the alderman can claim they had some city money spent (well?) in the ward, so they deserve to be reelected . . .
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I appreciate your new perspective on how the ADAAG are applied, many times poorly, and many times, as in here, not maintained/forgotten/made worse over time. As an architect, I see instances every day, with both access and exiting, that have me either scratching my head (what were they thinking) or wanting to call the fire department (this can’t be safe). Blaming “the crew” is probably misplaced – for the most part, they get paid to do, not to think. Somewhere up the food chain will (should?) be someone who actually either understands or should understand and be making sure the directions given to the crew are adequate and correct (in computer terms, “garbage in, garbage out”). Even further up the food chain, most likely at the elected official level, expectations are being defined and priorities are being set correctly, or not.
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If ADA compliance were truly a priority the city embraced, it would be being done much better than it is. (In comparison, our focus on using union labor and paying union wages has been and continues to be a priority.) Look at what cities like Davis, CA. have done, when they, for example, decided to make their city bicycle friendly. We, in contrast, are saddled with aging infrastructure and an eroding tax base, so a limited budget equals having to make too many poor choices. And with an election coming up and Highway 40 closing, what better thing to do than to lay some new asphalt? 😉
More asphalt means higher billings to the city and higher revenues for the contractors. Virtually every major public project in this region uses an overabundance of concrete/asphalt. As one county employee explained to me, the “concrete mafia” is quite strong here. They’re not picking on the ADA, oversight is inadequate and perhaps even inept. MOdot is the same.
The comment “(In comparison, our focus on using union labor and paying union wages has been and continues to be a priority.)” does a great disservice to the number of unions who’s members take great pride in their work and produce quality.
Ah yes, we are saddled with aging infrastructure. Hello, we have been around for a very very long time. You want a new city, move to Phoenix or Vegas, but they still have the same issue.
Maurice, my comment has nothing to do with the quality of work union workers produce, it’s just a statement that using union labor and paying union wages IS a bigger priority in St. Louis than providing accessibility. Our leaders, by definition, must make choices and prioritize how our taxes are spent. In my mind, they’re not mutually exclusive, and if Federal money is involved, it’s a requirement to pay prevailing wages. But as Steve points out, repeatedly, accessibilty is simply not a prority in St. Louis when it comes to spending taxes. In contrast, giving away potential revenues to developers, through overly-generous TIF’s and tax abatements, continues to be a priority, along with figuring out how to get a monthly gas stipend for each member of the Board of Aldermen. It’s all about choices.
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There are only two solutions to the larger budget issue, increased revenues or reduced services. And since it appears that we’re reaching the limit on tax rates (with now a 10% sales tax on restaurant meals and our 1% earnings tax) that our existing residents and businesses are willing to pay, that leaves either growing the city’s economy, substantially, or reducing city services, even further, in line with stagnant or falling revenues as the only two options.
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The challenges facing the SLPS are no different. From the P-D on 6/27: “With the administrative board looking for ways to find $30 million to balance the 2008-09 budget, the district’s finances — particularly the loss of resources to the charter schools — dominated [Rick] Sullivan’s [the chief executive officer of the St. Louis Public Schools] hourlong report to the state board. Those who support charters cannot ignore the fiduciary impact it has,” he said in response to a question about Mayor Francis Slay’s support of plans to open additional charter schools over the next 10 years. The money follows the kids, but the expenses (incurred by the district) do not. And, in St. Louis, that has to be taken into consideration.”
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The fiscally-correct answer is to close schools and fire employees. The politically-correct answer is to keep neighborhood schools open (even if a third full) and to keep existing employees on the payroll, even if the need for their services is declining. Those are the hard choices no politician likes to make, and many apparently won’t. And, unfortunately, these decisions, taken in total, are perceived by many in the national business community as a reason to invest elsewhere.
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And for an esoteric thought – this paving issue is a symbol of much of our regional consciousness. We seem willing to empower many people to make small decisions, but we seem unwilling to empower a few leaders with the real power to make big decisions and to actually lead. Slay is not a Daley or a Bloomberg. Every alderman is smarter than the professional staff the city hires and knows what’s best for their ward on every decision. We have nearly a hundred cities in the county so that we can have 80+ mayors and city councils deciding where to put the next 4-way stop or where to use eminent domain to build the next shopping center that will fix their local budget deficit.
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The last, big, audacious idea around here happened 80 years ago, when the process for the Arch started. Before that was the World’s Fair and Forest Park. Since then, we’ve seen Pruitt-Igoe come and go, seen the streetcars go away, seen Gravios Bluffs and Chesterfield and Winghaven grow, seen GM move form the city to Wentzville, and seen the airport take out whole neighborhoods to put in a runway that’s rarely used. We used to be bigger than Chicago. We’re now just continuing to morph into a city and a region that continues to slip from the national consciousness. We’re becoming a non-entity, kind of like southern California or North Carolina’s Piedmont, a conglomeration of suburban sprawl with no real core. For (too?) many people, this is just fine – they can work in their suburban office park and drive home to their cul de sac. But for those of us who value the city, it’s frustrating seeing what other older cities are accomplishing (Boston, Portland, Chicago and even Atlanta) and what’s (not) happening here . . . and yes, politics is playing a big role in the why and why not!
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