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.




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