This is a great example of the curb cut effect -- a system designed for accessibility needs turns out to be useful in other contexts. Curb cuts were designed for people with disabilities, particularly veterans, and over time have become more and more standard. They help people who use wheelchairs, yes, but also people without disabilities like those with strollers, bikes, luggage, or small kids.
We love to see accessibility features find uses outside their original intent.
Agreed. I like the framing that there are three kinds of disability: permanent (I lost my arm in a motorcycle crash), temporal (I broke my arm and can’t use it for a while), and situational (I’m walking my dog so I can only use one arm for other things).
Generally we only refer to someone with a permanent disability as “disabled” but in reality we are all disabled in various categories at different times of our lives. Accessibility is important to all three groups (you need to be able to use your phone with one hand), therefore accessibility is important to everyone.
And furthermore, ~15% of us are permanently disabled. So the percentages for temporary or situational disability rise even higher than that.
Where does that 15% number come from? Because I would have to assume it is using a very broad definition of disabled, which would include invisible disabilities. Certainly it's not true that 15% of the people I see are in a wheelchair, on crutches, missing a limb, obviously blind (e.g. walking with a cane), and so on. Even allowing for the fact that many people with disabilities stay home (often by necessity, sometimes by choice) rather than go out to run errands, still I doubt the number would get anywhere close to 15% if the definition only included the kinds of disabilities that are immediately obvious to anyone looking.
In fact, I would say it's probably too low! Like, how is prescription glasses to correct vision not an assistive device for a disability, like poor eyesight?
Honestly, what's the difference between a wheelchair and prescription glasses? Both are medical devices prescribed be a healthcare professional to assist with a physical impairment.
What's the difference between glasses and an iron lung? Only the degree, severity, dependance, impact, consequence, social implication, dehumanization, and every other meaningful aspect!
> Honestly, what's the difference between a wheelchair and prescription glasses?
Taking the silly question seriously for a moment: the difference is that with prescription glasses, you can function just exactly like someone who doesn't need them. Once you are wearing the glasses, your ability to do pretty much anything is unimpaired. Whereas a wheelchair restores some mobility, but does not, for example, impart the ability to climb stairs. It does not give you back all the mobility of someone who doesn't need one.
Might as well throw bald people in there because not having hair can be a disadvantage in the dating scene.
I love this. Thank you for sharing.
One can try putting themselves sometimes in the position of an old person. Let's say you have a heavy steel rollator with grocery bags hanging from the handles. You've spent an hour going to the store in the summer heat and are quite exhausted. Now try to enter your building. There's locked door that needs to be held open, and two thresholds, one for the platform in front of the door and one for the door. You can't go over the first threshold with your rollator as that would prevent the door from being opened.
Now, I think the assumed way to get in is to keep the door open with your body while simultaneously lifting the rollator over both thresholds. This requires considerable strength, as you have to reach far with a heavy weight. Maybe an athlete could do it. Not an old exhausted person.
An old person needs to first leave the rollator out, open the door and make it so it stays open with a hook. Involves crouching and working with your hands close to the ground. Then lift the rollator one by one over the steps and go inside. Then come back out and close the door.
A foot operated door stopper and a few slopes could probably ease that up tremendously.
> the curb cut effect
Which itself is kind of an interesting example of how these things should work, because the curbs are maintained by the government, so the compliance cost is getting paid by the taxpayer.
Which is as it should be, because if something is to be required as a public benefit then it should be paid for out of public funds rather than as an unfunded mandate. Then thing like curb cuts continue to be a good deal so people are happy to fund them, whereas measures that cost more than they're worth get the level of opposition that they should because the taxpayer has to pay for them. And either way you would stop stressing smaller companies and causing market consolidation by increasing compliance costs.
Doesn't your argument hinge on the fact that roads and sidewalks are public works anyway?
The fact that compliance costs outprices some smaller companies rather shows that we as a society prefer to have accomodations, than live in one where such accomodations are only affordable to the affluent.
> Doesn't your argument hinge on the fact that roads and sidewalks are public works anyway?
Not at all, it just happens that we're already doing the right thing in that case because it wasn't possible to stick the wrong party with the bill.
> The fact that compliance costs outprices some smaller companies rather shows that we as a society prefer to have accomodations, than live in one where such accomodations are only affordable to the affluent.
It isn't the consumers being priced out, it's the producers. Which in turn causes the market to consolidate so that only the affluent can afford the big company monopolist's product anyway, and everyone else not only doesn't get accommodations but can't even afford the product or service anymore. Housing is a solid example of this; unfunded mandates make construction significantly more expensive and now millions of people can't afford a home.
Whereas if the taxpayer had to fund everything the government mandates, the mandates would have to account for the cost directly rather than hiding it inside the price of everything else, allowing people to make better choices about which ones are worth what they cost.
Yeah it wasn’t until I started pushing my daughter around in a pram that I started appreciating them. Crossing a road without them is a chore.
I saw a sibling comment mentioning about the drop curbs making the path awkwardly angled. Yeah they can be a real pain. Pushing a pram along on an angled path is hell on the wrists. But a lot of the troublesome ones are the wider ones for people to get their cars up to their front door.
Makes you think about how hard just going down the road with a wheelchair is.
Dropped curbs also make progress more difficult for users using the pavement / sidewalk in a normal manner, since it introduces constrictions and trip hazards - which is a aspect of "curb cut effect" that is glossed over.
Try going for a run along a pavement with frequent curb cuts, it's not pleasant. UK dropped curbs are somewhat less of a trip hazard but are so frequent in towns that you end up running with an ankle at an angle.
I've never really seen the dropped curbs as a hazard, but I guess it depends on how they are made and if they've been designed in from the start.
One "weird" complaint that I have with some accessibility features is that they mount things so that wheelchair users (and children) can operate them, e.g. a ATM mounted at groin height. I'm fairly tall so now I struggle to operate them or have to bend in unnatural angles. It's a small price to pay to make the world navigable to others, but almost daily I run into things that "are clearly designed by idiots". That is until I remember that the average person is below 180cm and right handed.
This just makes no sense whatsoever. You can just step over dropped curbs like you can step over normal curbs?
Even if this is not the case for some weird reason - don't you agree that making the world a little bit more accessible for people who have a really hard time getting around is worth making the world just a tiny little bit less accessible for you - the person who can litterally run around?
If you have a considerable problem with tripping often though, maybe look at how you do running.
Running with your ankle at an angle occasionally gives great strength/mobility benefits. You'd need to be putting out some serious racer pace for curb cuts to be impacting your experience in any way.
Just make sure you alternate which side of the road you are running on somewhat evenly so you are getting the benefit on both sides.
Yeah, I just run on the road or trails to avoid areas like this. Happy to make this trade so that folks in wheelchairs etc can actually use the sidewalk, they need it more than I do!
Yes, fully agreed. Also try practicing jeu de boules on pavements with cut curbs. The balls will constantly roll off the edge. It's infuriating.
My most unpleasant experience so far has been during my daily public heavy deadlifting routine. When I place my barbell on the edge of the curb, which my particular style of lifting requires, it's placed at an angle so my back got messed up and it's all the fault of these curb cutting measures.
It's all fine and dandy you want to assist children and handicapped people, but it'll be at the expense of regular users of the pavement which use it for completely sane and normal activities.
And that is the correct response to tedious contrarinism. Thank you!
Only because anglo-style curb cuts are designed horribly. In Austria, they are unobtrusive add-ons to the sidewalk instead of literally obstructing the sidewalk.
My conclusion, as always, is that U.S.-Americans and Brits do not walk. Otherwise these design choices do not make any sense.
Who is "we"? Do you work somewhere that specialises in the curb cut effect? Would love to hear more about your organization.
Won’t dispute the utility, but curious if they would have become standard without regulations. At least in the US, I associate them with ADA requirements
And skateboards, roller skates, scooters!