What is wrong with this sidewalk?
This sidewalk, heading South from Washington Ave. along the East side of 14th Street, has a number of issues. Most notably it is too narrow.
On the positive side, the trees and parked cars make a nice buffer between the pedestrian and passing vehicles. Since my stroke I’ve walked this sidewalk a few times and the half block you see here is harder to walk on than the previous two blocks to get to this point. It slopes downhill slightly but that is not an issue. The cross slope, however, makes this sidewalk very difficult to walk on. The side to side slope is beyond allowable limits of the ADA. To the eye you can see the slight slope.
The able-bodied would have no problem walking this sidewalk but for those of us with one leg that doesn’t work as well as the other find it a major challenge.
– Steve Patterson
There’s also no life to that stretch of sidwalk. It isn’t a streetscape. Where’s the small shop adjoining?
Between the side slope, the change in paving materials, and the long blank wall, it looks like a fun-house version of a public walk. I found myself getting a bit dizzy just looking at the picture.
The excessive cross slope is a safety issue, even for able-bodied people. I’d expect that it’s the city’s responsibility to make sure it’s properly maintained – why it’s been allowed to remain this way for multiple years is beyond me . . .
Steve, what is the solution? That’s a serious question…what is your recommendtion? I see you spoke in a comment about widening the sidewalk at the expense of a traffic lane. What’s your proposal?
I agree that this is a case of trying to stuff 10 bushels of street trees into a 5 bushel basket. Whoever planned the streetscape improvements failed to consider the physical circumstances on this block. This looks like a cookie-cutter package of improvements that was probably applied without consideration of differing sidewalk widths, etc. Even the brickwork running parallel to the walking path was poorly thought out – it appears like the spaces between the bricks are wide enough to catch a wheelchair wheel or narrow bicycle tire….
What’s the solution? I prefer to retrofit and repair rather than rip it out and re-do it, but I don’t see much that could be salvaged in this scene.