Urban Travel, Sustainability & Accessibility: Perils for Pedestrians

Showing posts with label Perils for Pedestrians. Show all posts

Saturday, April 5, 2025

MIAMI REFUSES TO PROTECT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

CARS DANGEROUSLY BLOCKING SIDEWALKS ARE NEVER TOWED

Welcome to Miami — where we despise pedestrians.

Dozens of times I have asked cops to tow cars blocking sidewalks — because it forces people with disabilities into dangerous streets.

The answer always is NO.

But Miami Police does tow vehicles (because we all know 5000 pound trucks and SUVs are more important than human lives.)

The city tows vehicles that: slightly block the roadway, park in areas temporarily roped off for festivals, break down in traffic, etc.

Basically, if it slows traffic by 1% -- it's towed.

If it endangers people with disabilities & all pedestrians by 100% -- it's ignored.

PLEASE STOP THE ABLEISM NOW!

Saturday, April 13, 2024

PEDESTRIANS, ESPECIALLY THOSE WITH DISABILITIES, NEED SMOOTH SURFACES

CROSSWALKS MADE OF BUMPY PAVERS AND COBBLESTONES

MAKE NO SENSE

If you were designing a place for human being to cross four, sometimes six or more lanes of traffic – you would want it to be safe, right?

You would create a surface that is smooth and free of tripping hazards.

Something low maintenance.

What have cities done for decades?

The install brick, paver and cobbled crosswalks to look cool and urban.

The bumps and inevitable missing pavers jar wheelchair users from their mobility devices.

They trip older and younger pedestrians.

When the person falls and is injured by the fall – or terrible injured or killed by a vehicle…authorities call it an accident.

Poor design is no accident.

For ages, we have been planning, engineering and building urban corridors where the giant speeding vehicles that weigh several tons get the smooth surface.

Pedestrians – including those using wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, canes and other assistive mobility devices – are exposed to an uneven surface – as they are given 30 second or loss to avoid rubber tired killing machines racing 45 mph or faster.

If this makes sense, please tell me how.

I suggested smooth, pigmented concrete or painted asphalt.

But pedestrian-centered, urban-minded traffic engineer told me paint is rarely allowed under the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTACD) – created by the Federal Highway Administration to allegedly make the world safer for people walking, rolling and biking.

Painted crosswalks could and should be a better visual cue for cars, trucks and buses to slow down as they are approaching a crosswalk.

We cannot keep creating the hazardous pathway of bricks, pavers and cobbles – and pretend it is for pedestrian safety.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

WHAT KIND OF GOVERNMENT BLOCKS PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

FROM ACCESSING A SAVE, PAVED GREENWAY PATH?

Here’s an idea. An exclusionary one.

Let’s pave miles of safe pedestrian trails ideal for wheelchair users.

But let’s end the sidewalk before it connects to them.

This is in Coral Gables just west of Segovia traffic circle at Granada Golf Course.

City official claims Miami-Dade County is approving a traffic circle that will fix all of this.

Looks to use like a simple few feet of concrete or asphalt would fill the gap and provide access.

Check out the image below.

Super-inviting, safe pathway.

Two blocks from Coral Gables downtown.

But this entire intersection, zero ways to access the path from city sidewalks -- if you use a wheelchair for mobility.

Saturday, March 11, 2023

NARROW BUS STOP

WITH NO WHEELCHAIR ACCESS TO ADJACENT PAVED PATH

Cruel and unusual bus stop in Coral Gables.

This problem festers on Coral Way at South Greenway.

There are miles of smooth paved pathways along Granada Golf Course are a few feet away.

But the bus stop pad ends in a cliff that prevents wheelchair users from accessing the paths.

A city official tells my Miami-Dade County is fixing the issue.

But I think that might be a crosswalk, not an accessible link to the safe, paved paths.

Saturday, February 18, 2023

NO VALENTINE'S WEEK LOVE FOR PEDESTRIANS

FROM FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

This is how little we think of human beings.

Tiny sidewalk space, barely wheelchair width and choked with utility vault tripping hazards forced against dangerous traffic.

Giant pole farther from traffic — to protect out of control drivers from hitting it.
The barely navigable pedestrian space is on Miami Beach at Collins Avenue and 26 Street.

It has a walk score of 87 — meaning thousands of pedestrians are endangered by this automobile first design.

Saturday, June 19, 2021

DANGEROUS SIDWALKS

CITY OF MIAMI ROUTINELY BLOCKS SAFE PEDESTRIAN AND WHEELCHAIR ACCESS

A sign for vehicles blocks the sidewalk to wheelchair users and others on SW 16 Avenue near Coral Way in Miami. A neighbor took pictures, sent a complaint and after waiting more than a month with no answer, the city moved the sign three inches -- and left it still in ADA violation.

My wife uses a wheelchair for mobility and she's been going out with me while I continue to walk to lose weight.

We can barely make it a few blocks without running up against some kind of obstruction to the sidewalk – a sign in the middle of it, stop light equipment boxes blocking it, or cars illegally parked over it perpetually and not one police officer who cares to ticket that illegal behavior.

This isn't silly or annoying. It's a death sentence.

When my wife goes out in the street, she is risking her life.

I’m not always around to try to guard against bad drivers.

The way Miami drivers drive, the street could be empty one moment, then a person going 45 mph or faster can turn off another road and plow her over.

She cannot leap out of the way.

She has a top-of-the-line wheelchair, but it does not move quickly.

It disgusts me that every day, our city leaders are on national TV, recruiting tech firms and giving away public land to billionaire developers.

But they don't spend 10 minutes taking a common-sense approach to removing barriers and making sure future public works employees never repeat the same mistakes.

Half the time when there isn't a sign right in the center of the sidewalk, there are too many driveways at a sharp angle.

Imagine being in a wheelchair and riding at a nearly 45-degree angle and hoping gravity doesn't take over your 200-pound mobility device and flip you into oncoming traffic or topple over on you -- leading to series injury or your death.

Progressive cities keep the sidewalks level while using more space for the driveway to go out into the right of way.

But in Miami, every yard and right of way has been taken for one more lane of breakneck traffic -- even on sleepy side streets -- so the sidewalks are ruined.

One day, they hire a consultant for hundreds of thousands to promote walkability and bike use.

But the other 364, they are lazily, stupidly creating danger and chaos.

I'm not genius, but at 10 years old -- without an engineering, architecture or town planning degree -- I could have figured out that a sign post (think metal or huge concrete) blocking the safe pedestrian sidewalk…is a damn dumb idea.

How can trained professionals paid incredible salaries, with top shelf benefits and an early retirement age unheard of outside city employment -- keep making the same idiot moves?

Whenever I need an image of how NOT to do things (close a city block of desperately needed sidewalk on Calle 8 for 2 years to allow a developer to profit more) -- I only have to walk within a mile of my house to get images that show idiotic city design.

I hate to state these facts and state them in anger – but when my adopted hometown favors profit over people 99% of the time, the truth must be shared.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

PERILS FOR PEDESTRIANS -- A GREAT SITE FIGHTING FOR OUR SAFETY

VISIT JOHN WETMORE'S INFORMATIVE SITE AT WWW.PEDESTRIANS.ORG

The image above shows that while sidewalk cafes are great, they can encroach on the mobility for a people with a disability.

John Wetmore has dedicated countless hours to documenting the insanity that engineers, architects, planners and public works officials create for people just trying to go about their lives on foot.

His YouTube Channel shows far too many intersections where the car is king and the pedestrian must have a death wish to cross -- even with the protection of a red light for traffic and a "walk" sign for peds.

The tide has seemed to turn in favor of pedestrian, bike and wheelchair mobility. But it will take decades for cities, counties and states to redesign streetscapes to give pedestrians a fighting chance against the almighty speeding vehicle.

John Wetmore is working daily to make life better. His understanding of all the obstructions, lack of maintenance and fuzzy design that prevents wheelchair users from enjoying the barrier-free mobility that they deserve on our sidewalks, especially in urban areas.

http://www.pedestrians.org/

The images shows how poorly maintained sidewalks -- maybe the city should have gone with cement instead of hard-to-replace and maintain pavers -- can spell doom for a blind or visually impaired person.