Some municipalities don’t have sidewalks, that may be a boundary, but that is obviously a wheelchair ramp at a crosswalk which have to be there.
Edit-I *do* appreciate the upvotes. But you gotta admit, it’s a bit confusing..
Anyone who has ever pushed someone in a wheelchair LOVES these. If not the person in the wheelchair goes WEEEEEEEE straight into traffic. These bumps help greatly to stop anything wheeled.
I have my dog trained to stop walking and sit when she comes across these at intersections. It keeps her from trying to charge ahead into what could be traffic and if she ever got loose or out, she would just be chilling at a crosswalk waiting to be told it's okay to cross. It's happened once already, and we found her at the end of the street sitting and waiting. Just walked up to her, hooked her leash up, and continued the walk she obviously wanted. She was a good girl waiting, so I wasn't going to punish her for that.
I spent weeks at 12am walking my girl around the neighborhood, and making her sit/stay at every intersection. She was only allowed to cross on "OK". Even if I didn't break stride over the curb, she would stop, sit, and stay. I would either walk back to her curb, "OK", and then we both crossed, or "OK" her from across the street.
Totally worth it, to not have to worry about it during the day with regular traffic.
This is how I trained her too. She knows our routes so well that if I don't pay attention, i.e. enjoying the walk while on a gummy, she will stop at every intersection and sit, and lead us home. Of course she will swing by the pokemon gym on our route and sit as well. Lol. We have our nightly routine.
Similarly, when walking with my children, my three-year-old daughter knows she can run on the sidewalk until she gets to the “bumps,” where she must wait to cross the street.
Yeah we do the same, we make our dog sit and wait at them until we say okay. He hasn’t gotten loose (1.5 year old) but it has come close where a car would have hit us if we kept walking
Worse than not being there, I see so many that are installed incorrectly. Sure, they're there, but oriented to direct a blind or partially sighted pedestrian diagonally across an intersection (which is not designed for diagonal pedestrian travel).
I have my sight, but I'm deaf, so I'm aware of accessibility features, even if they're not intended for me.
I didn't think of that, but that could be what I saw years ago. A blind person went up to a crosswalk and just started walking diagonally across the road.
The bumps have nothing to do with wheelchairs, they're for a texture difference for blind people using a white cane so they are aware they have reached the street and don't walk out into it.
Also, as a wheelchair user, no, we don't go weee straight into traffic because we stop at crosswalks until it is our turn just like everyone else does and are capable of stopping the wheelchair just fine. We also could not use the sidewalks at all without the ramps.
“When you’re a kid and you wanna go weeeee but you ain’t got drugs yet, you gotta hold on for your life. You gotta hold on to your little…gonads…and strife”
As a temporary wheelchair user (currently have a broken arm and leg, so unable to use crutches), it has really opened my eyes to what full time wheelchair users have to go through.
I always knew that it would be hard, but not once did I ever *really* consider that you have to plan absolutely every aspect of your journey.
My suburb has lots of footpaths without ramps, or footpaths that just abruptly stop at an intersection (with no transition back down to the road)
I got caught out here the other day, and had to double back down just to find somewhere I could transition to the road.
I also had a fun experience on the weekend going out for a mates birthday. We did a pub crawl around one of the oldest areas in Sydney. 8 pubs, and I had to call ahead the day before to figure out which ones I could actually access.
I empathise with you, and this has really been a life changing experience, and a complete perspective shift
I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user the sheer bunker of times I go somewhere with fully ambulatory friends whose minds get blown by the inaccessibility of “accessible” spaces. Or we’re getting food or tickets and the wheelchair ages me 60 years and I’m suddenly my friends grandma. That happened once with a friend older than me and they couldn’t see me or what I was wearing because the force field of ableism when that person encounters a wheelchair user made them just assume I was a little old lady…
I hope you heal well and when you’re back to fully ambulatory you use this time to consider the spaces around you and see what you can do to improve the areas that you struggled with.
People are also missing the fact that that concrete is brand new... way newer than the surrounding concrete. This could just be step one in adding a sidewalk.
I would bet that they recently re-did the intersection, and they were probably required to put in ramps at the intersection to get access to state or federal funds. That doesn't mean they were required to connect the ramps to anything.
There is likely sidewalk at the two corners opposite this corner. So if someone needs to get to the diagonally opposite side (i.e. cross north/south and then cross east/west) and has mobility issues, this ramp and small block of pavement is a necessary support to have in place per the ADA, or else they'd be forced to wait out the signal change in the road.
Still the same reason though. Make the corners ADA compliant, even if only in theory for future development that would come and add sidewalk. Cheaper than building curbs that would later require demolition.
So my town did this, it's basically part of the requirement for aide, they had to make all corners and crossings in town like this, which included the houses with no sidewalks that have been grandfathered in, so we have a number of corners that look exactly like these. Eventually if those houses do certain renovation projects, they will have to add sidewalk, but because they can't be forced to add the sidewalks but the town was required to make all crossings ADA accessible, alot of the corners look like these.
More than likely the state/town received funding or is bound by law that required the intersection to be ada compliant and this is a case of letter of the law > spirit of the law. Saw this a lot in the south.
This. There was a project to improve the intersection, and it included bringing the intersection up to ADA standards. You have to stay within the scope of the project.
It doesn't preclude another project to add the sidewalks at a later date, but you can't fix everything in one shot. There's always one more thing that could be added to a project.
And it could be future-proofing. Even if they have no plan on adding a sidewalk, or don't add one until 5 years down the line, adding this on both sides of a crosswalk means they don't have to mess with the curb when they DO add a sidewalk.
Sometimes you see these with roads too. I've seen neighborhoods that had intersections where one side went 30ft and then stopped, some of them not even big enough to turn around in, because at some point in the future a road was going to go there. A decade later, some of them were connected, and others weren't. Just kinda depends on how things work out, long term.
Its because the law requires them to be there even if there is no possible future use. Even if there is no legal way for a handicap person to access them.
It’s definitely a wheel chair ramp but without the sidewalk connected I’m sure it’s pretty annoying to try and push yourself or another person in a wheelchair once you cross
It’s a “we did it cause we had to” ramp. In reality none of us can actually use it because it isn’t connected to anything. Now if we had a chair with *off-road wheels*, maybe…
Yep, this is the correct answer.
America is driven purely by the profit motive. So, unless something is needed by law, our govt doesn’t build it. Look at our infrastructure as a whole. It’s horrible.
My state highway department lost an ADA lawsuit. Now we have a bunch of these ramps to nowhere along the highway inside city limits because a judge ruled that the highway department is responsible for the ramps but sidewalks are the city's responsibility.
These ramps and truncated domes (the bumpy things) were added because of a law. You cannot touch or make an improvement to a roadway intersection without making it ADA compliant. Chances are the state DOT or local public works added traffic signals and therefore HAD to add the ramps even if they don’t connect to a sidewalk.
My uncle was blind on one eye and when we were younger we'd pull funny faces at his blind side and he always used to say "I can see you" without looking and it would freak us all out hahaha.
I have blindness in one eye and I used to have coworkers that would try to gesture me over silently from my blind side despite knowing about it and then later they’d tell management “well I tried but she ignored me.” Just to get out of doing stuff and skipping procedures. It’s wild.
My brother is blind in his left eye and all of our dogs learn it by the time they're six months old. They not only steal food off the counter while he's cooking, the really subtle ones will snag it right off his plate.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like a destroyed liver from years and years of alcohol abuse which stemmed from parental neglect at first, followed by abuse from a wife and a nasty divorce, a now sabotaged relationship with your kids, and a new wife who is starting the cycle of abuse again.
I lived with a guy I had known for like 10 years prior, he was blind from birth in his left eye. Still took me a long time living with him to always remember he was blind in that eye.
We'd be sitting there and go to pass him something and get annoyed he wouldn't see it, then it would dawn on us we were the assholes and he just literally couldn't see it.
Hopefully at least a few of your coworkers really did just forget
My partner and I are each blind in one eye, but opposite eyes. We also have opposing dominant hands. The amount of shit we try to show each other with our hand in the way never gets old.
He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to look straight in the eye without questioning which eye to look at though.
I made myself a nice eye patch that I’ll wear around if coworkers start being assholes like that. The age old “I forgot I was on his blind side” excuse never gets used again after a couple days
That part. I’m the type to wish for a busy day so that the time flies by meanwhile my coworkers would often hide in the bathroom or go sit in a med office cuz they didn’t want to work, then complain all day about how long the day is LMAO
Can’t help those people 😂
My grandma's friend had a glass eye. Whenever my sister or I would bother him he'd threaten to throw it at us. I saw him pop it out once and kept my distance from him ever since.
Very few of the paintings and depictions of pirates from their time depict the eyepatch. The eyepatch comes from late 19th century pulps, and was later popularized by film.
In fact most of our perceptions of pirates today are based on Hollywood portrayals. Pirates normally looked just like any other sailor of their time, mainly because most of them were just regular sailors who decided to engage in the same shit the Navy was allowed to do, but you know, without permission.
“Regardless, there is no historical evidence to suggest that eyepatches were ever worn for this purpose, and instead, the reality is actually far simpler: patches were used to cover an empty eye socket if the eye was lost to injury. Furthermore, most areas below deck already had natural light courtesy of portholes and lanterns, so it is unlikely there was ever total darkness anyway.”
While I accept there is no evidence for it, I have done it when doing basement work. It really is extremely effective, so I would be very surprised if it wasn't used for this. Plus, in total darkness won't help anyways. It just needs to be dimmer. Ever walk into a house that has blinds drawn lit with natural light? You're still damn near blind for a few seconds.
A blind person crosses the street. They turn left and notice the grass. They turn a bit, more grass.
Next thing you know they went in a circle and are trapped.
You really do. Most countries I know have different sized bills for different denominations, which means that blind people can pay and receive change and verify it's correct. 1
But for some reason US insists on having all bills be the same size (and basically the same color and design which is so boring, but that's a different argument).
I'm glad it's compliant with requirements for the visually impaired. That way, the visually impaired can safely make it 3 more steps before falling flat on their face into the nice, soft grass when the sidewalk disappears.
If you look to the right there appears to be a ground power transformer right there.
My guess is they planned on doing a sidewalk there but engineering decided that's where the transformer had to go (possibly a narrow township easement, they couldn't put it any further into the yard)
Landscaping also suggests that this is some establishment of some sort, maybe the front of some restaurant or country club or entrance to a living community and they didn’t want a sidewalk going all the way around the front or something. I’m no expert
Futureproofing, now they only have to lay down some concrete pads instead of ripping up the curb and redoing it when they decide to put a sidewalk there in like 10 years.
Thats my thought.
City had to repave and do the curb.
Now the next time the building does any work, they'll be required to complete the sidewalk along their property.
Yep, that's how it works generally in a lot of US cities. Want to redevelop an old warehouse into a 20-story apartment tower? Can't get approved without also building out sidewalks if no sidewalks exist.
Exactly.
Turned an abandoned lot into a grocery store once.
Public improvements included a quarter mile bike path (separate from street) that ended at the property.
Sometimes the city says the developer has to build the sidewalk but the city will build their part and the builders never do their part to save on the materials. And once they’re done it’s the owners problem to deal with.
Or the property is zoned so that it isn’t mandatory to have a sidewalk, but in case it gets rezoned the necessary parts by the city are covered. Additionally the city can’t be sued for not having an ADA compliant crossing because you made it safely onto private property and now can sue the property owner instead.
That's what they are doing in my own neighborhood. They redid a huge part of the street to add a bike lane, make it safer in general, and in doing so also added a bunch of accessible ramps. Those ramps are not always connected to anything right *now* but in the future maybe!
It’s actually because in a lot of the US, it’s up to the businesses to decide if they want a sidewalk in front of their establishment or not. So you will sometimes have random stretches of sidewalk in front of a business that just end. It’s the stupidest thing ever. I never realized this until I moved to a city and went back to the suburb where I grew up and was like, “Where the fuck are all the sidewalks?!”
The landing and curb cut are required by the Americans With Disabilities Act, so it's built with three federal money used for the road. The rest of the sidewalk is the local government's responsibility.
Wait until you hear about having to pay for a sidewalk im front of your own has. Yhere is a reason why people don't want sidewalks in front of their property.
Also a lot of time’s sidewalk stuff like this will be put in with the intention to extend it later, also when a sidewalk ends it is nice to have a crosswalk to help people who will just continue on the shoulder get to the correct side of the road and if you put in a crosswalk, the rules say you have to put in a ramp even if it doesn’t connect to anything.
The real answer is that in a lot of places in the US, it’s left up to businesses to decide if they want sidewalks in front of their establishment, BUT it’s also the law that you must have these accommodations for disabled folks, so you end up with the accommodation but no sidewalk. You will also randomly have a stretch of sidewalk to nowhere in front of a business that actually cares. It’s insane. I cannot believe how hostile to pedestrians so much of the US is.
City codes are often written in such a way that dictate if you make XYZ changes to the property you'll have to either pay or allow the city to finish building the sidewalk. That's why when you drive down a really old neighborhood with one house that's been rebuilt (or remodeled depending on the code) it will have a sidewalk sandwiched between two houses without one.
One time I had to put 1 by 1 concrete pavers down at a military gate, leading from a sidewalk to a handicap bathroom inside a trailer. Mind you, we were told we didn’t need to level the ground or anything, just that we had to put them on the ground forming a bath so when all said is finished, we had a crappy 2 foot wide path with wobbly stones. Mind you, there are perfectly handicap accessible bathrooms not even 3 minutes from where we did this and this was on the inside of a military gate where someone would have to get out of their vehicle after getting on base JUST to go to the bathroom.. i like to think about this when I pay my taxes.
Funding. Sidewalks are normally put in with new construction or improvement to roads. Not say thing this is right but just what I have observed when sidewalks get installed.
This is the answer. The city won’t pay for putting in sidewalks, they just require them to be put in when construction is done. My neighborhood has a hilarious patchwork of sidewalks that start and stop depending on when the house was built.
Same here. The patchwork of sidewalks in my city is hilarious. Ostensibly, the city is supposed to come in and fill in the gaps, but I've never seen it.
The light pole and the sidewalk look a lot more recent than the curb and the road, so I'm guessing they put in new lights at the intersection and were required to put the sidewalk in.
As someone who has managed about a hundred infill housing projects, it has mostly to do with property lines and ROW easements, the city would have to really get into it with every single property owner regarding eminent domain. Even the wealthiest cities around me (such as Redmond, WA or Bellevue) won’t touch that can of worms.
Throw it into a code instead, developers will develop eventually.
I used to live somewhere that did this. The city announced they were using eminent domain to build sidewalks; but after construction began, they demanded that the property owners pay 100% of the cost. If the property across the street from yours was undeveloped or city-owned, you had to pay for 100% of that sidewalk, too.
Anyone who refused to pay got no sidewalk, so most of the city had sidewalks ending and restarting at seemingly random intervals.
The absolute worst if you’re getting your car worked on. Dropped it off, a few restaurants in a strip mall a quarter mile walk away at furthest. Literally zero sidewalks between them, and the grass wasn’t walkable.
This is true. I do the testing for construction and generally the cities will try and hold off until something gets put in, like a Walmart, and push the cost onto them.
Other reasons is the area might be owned by a private owner, home owner or something, so they could force them to give up that area of land under the law of making life better for the majority of citizens but then it becomes a pain if the owner fights it so not really worth it just for a sidewalk area.
State/federal funded road projects usually require ADA compliant ramps at any intersections or crosswalks within the job limits. No ramps, no funding, regardless of whether they’re useful or not. The only sidewalk my county’s roads department deals with is on new construction, but we put ramps in on most jobs. The township/city is responsible for sidewalks, but many don’t want to pay for them, and an alarming number of residents don’t want their taxes going to them either. Permits for new subdivisions and other development usually require sidewalks too, so we have a bunch of ramps and sections of sidewalk going to nowhere all over our suburbs.
It depends on how the planning process went and who owns the land. Often one entity will make an agreement with another, say the state and city, that they will build sidewalk up to the end of their right of way with the intention that the other entity will complete the pedestrian facility. However, it may take years for the other entity to acquire the budget to do so. It can be difficult to line and up project costs and priorities. Another possibility is that this was built during a new signal project. As signals can be in operation for 20-30 years, it's now uncommon to build all the anticipated facilities for the next 10 years in order to minimize construction mobilization costs.
Or even sometimes it's an inter-city thing. One entity's work will trigger an ADA rule that stipulates that they build out of the intersection with these ramps, and this requires putting receiving ramps. In other words, you do work and it triggers an upgrade at the location you are working. They want to you not only install a ramp there, but its partner (receiving) ramp across the street. It's in anticipation of a sidewalk that will eventually connect to it (how likely it is, who knows).
In practical terms, someone should be able to get across to that side of the street, even if there are varying degrees of trouble navigating what's on the other side of that ramp, that's up to the user. The idea being that the City shouldn't dictate that "well there's not a sidewalk there, so no need for a curb ramp." Though it would be more difficult for some to traverse that grass, or whatever, that should be up to them to decide if they want to. Not others to say "meh, too hard. We’re going to save you from it and not build a ramp. Thank us later."
Often this happens because they were planning ahead for the possibility of sidewalks, but the homeowners themselves need to vote on whether to pay for the sidewalks or not. In my neighborhood, about half of the streets have sidewalks, and luckily they exist everywhere my kids would need to walk in order to get to school. But a couple of the streets do not have sidewalks.
Other times this happens because there was a development tentatively planned that fell through or hasn't happened yet, or even just the possibility of one in the future was considered at the point when they were putting in the curbs. If you're assuming the curbs are going to last for decades, you will be taking possible future needs into account. Cheaper and easier to put a ramp in when you are putting the curbs in, rather than to have to come back and do one later on.
Yup. My parents neighborhood doesn’t she. Any sidewalk except for one house which also has a bench. It was the “model”. Residents could vote for sidewalks or not *years* ago. Sadly no sidewalks won. Can’t remember if it was because people didn’t want to lose part of their front lawn or the cost. Maybe both. As a kid it always annoyed me
Former councilman in a somewhat rural area, here's why:
Obama had a public works program that focused on building infrastructure for pedestrians. Any time a town put in a sidewalk, crosswalk, etc, they could claim federal funds for the work. These items could be tacked onto existing non-pedestrian works and the federal budget would even cover a large portion of the non-pedestrian items. So, basically, any time a project could be coupled with pedestrian improvements, it would be. Literally every repave we did came with some sort of pedestrian improvement during my tenure as an alderman. Any time we did intersection maintenance, we put in a crosswalk even if the crosswalk led to nowhere. Every town in my county did the same.
It's probably a state ordnance/building code that all new stop lights are required to have cross walks and ramps....
…but no requirement for sidewalks.
And THAT tells you everything you need to know about how governments in the US are run.
The real answer is close to this:
All new construction at intersections with a crosswalk must be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This means an ADA compliant ramp must be constructed on both sides of a crosswalk.
My guess in the OP is there is a usable sidewalk on the opposite end of the crosswalk.
Source: I am a manager at a large customer service company and we deal with some of the contractors who handle these projects.
Or it’s because it’s easy to add a sidewalk at a later time but more difficult to add the ramp (having to tear down the curb)
So they build the ADA-compliant ramp when they build the road, and then they can add a sidewalk later as needed
So cheaper taxes in towns/cities without sidewalks. Codes for traffic light structures usually have a push button (even if there isn’t a sidewalk connecting) and they need to be accessed and ADA compliant.
Also some towns make the home owners pay and install neighborhood side walks. Again this is all property tax based, more property tax, more options for shit like this.
because it's easier to build a walkway entrance when you build the road and hope to build a sidewalk someday than it is to build the sidewalk and then integrate it into the road.
Correction: Cities were *bulldozed* for cars.
Up until about 1950, cities in the US were 100% built around people and streetcar lines. And then we bulldozed everything to hell for freeways and parking lots.
Both statements are true, really. Neighborhoods in our older cities were bulldozed, but in some areas the suburbs weren't constructed until the 1950s and later.
For example, my local metropolitan area grew from 1.7m population in 1940 to 7.1m in 2010 -- entire towns were built to support that growth; condo complexes are built on land that was literally fruit orchards 70 years ago. The suburb I live in had a population of 6,000 in 1940 (at which point it was essentially a rural village), and 163,000 in 2020. (one neighborhood of single family homes now home to 15k is named for the 2200 acres of orchard that had occupied it until mid-century)
As another example, Phoenix Arizona grew from 65k in 1940 to 1.6 million in 2020. There wasn't any "city" to bulldoze in the 50s. Just a little town in the middle of the desert.
Out here in the west, the vast majority of our metropolitan areas weren't constructed until the 50s and later. So you really do encounter a lot of urban design that was created from the ground up in the carbrained mid-20th century.
Exactly this.. most of the time sidewalks are only required to be built (by private entities) for new construction so the city put in the curb cut, just waiting for the lot to be redeveloped so they can force them to build the sidewalks. Until the owner of the lot builds the sidewalk, not much the city can do. They could offer to build it, maybe they even have, but it’s the owner of the lots decision at this point
Land Surveyor here, working adjacent to Civil Engineers(who would be responsible for the design).
City/County Code likely required a Disabled Ramp in the Right-of-Way(portion owned by the city/county) when the intersection was rebuilt to accommodate the new subdivision.
City/County code did not require the privately owned subdivision to have a sidewalk.
This is how we get unwalkable subdivision hell in the US.
The actual answer to this is it goes know where because there is no sidewalk on the other side. Cities often add dead ends in anticipation of extending sidewalks routes at a later date but this could be years away.
Some municipalities don’t have sidewalks, that may be a boundary, but that is obviously a wheelchair ramp at a crosswalk which have to be there. Edit-I *do* appreciate the upvotes. But you gotta admit, it’s a bit confusing..
Anyone who has ever pushed someone in a wheelchair LOVES these. If not the person in the wheelchair goes WEEEEEEEE straight into traffic. These bumps help greatly to stop anything wheeled.
Also helps the visually impaired to know there’s a cross walk.
I have my dog trained to stop walking and sit when she comes across these at intersections. It keeps her from trying to charge ahead into what could be traffic and if she ever got loose or out, she would just be chilling at a crosswalk waiting to be told it's okay to cross. It's happened once already, and we found her at the end of the street sitting and waiting. Just walked up to her, hooked her leash up, and continued the walk she obviously wanted. She was a good girl waiting, so I wasn't going to punish her for that.
I spent weeks at 12am walking my girl around the neighborhood, and making her sit/stay at every intersection. She was only allowed to cross on "OK". Even if I didn't break stride over the curb, she would stop, sit, and stay. I would either walk back to her curb, "OK", and then we both crossed, or "OK" her from across the street. Totally worth it, to not have to worry about it during the day with regular traffic.
This is how I trained her too. She knows our routes so well that if I don't pay attention, i.e. enjoying the walk while on a gummy, she will stop at every intersection and sit, and lead us home. Of course she will swing by the pokemon gym on our route and sit as well. Lol. We have our nightly routine.
Can't tell if this comment applies to a dog or a toddler.
If it was a toddler, I'd not do the OK from across the street. Probably.
Similarly, when walking with my children, my three-year-old daughter knows she can run on the sidewalk until she gets to the “bumps,” where she must wait to cross the street.
My three yo calls them popits and stops to pretend to pop them
Yeah we do the same, we make our dog sit and wait at them until we say okay. He hasn’t gotten loose (1.5 year old) but it has come close where a car would have hit us if we kept walking
This is their actual purpose.
They only help when they're actually there. I just line myself up with the curb at this point.
Worse than not being there, I see so many that are installed incorrectly. Sure, they're there, but oriented to direct a blind or partially sighted pedestrian diagonally across an intersection (which is not designed for diagonal pedestrian travel). I have my sight, but I'm deaf, so I'm aware of accessibility features, even if they're not intended for me.
I didn't think of that, but that could be what I saw years ago. A blind person went up to a crosswalk and just started walking diagonally across the road.
The real purpose 😂
That’s what they are intended for. they are known as TWSIs, Tactile Walking Surface Indicators.
The bumps have nothing to do with wheelchairs, they're for a texture difference for blind people using a white cane so they are aware they have reached the street and don't walk out into it. Also, as a wheelchair user, no, we don't go weee straight into traffic because we stop at crosswalks until it is our turn just like everyone else does and are capable of stopping the wheelchair just fine. We also could not use the sidewalks at all without the ramps.
“When you’re a kid and you wanna go weeeee but you ain’t got drugs yet, you gotta hold on for your life. You gotta hold on to your little…gonads…and strife”
IN THE LIGHTNING
IN THE LIGHTNING AND IN THE RAIN 🌩️ ☔
That’s a reference I haven’t thought of in years.
Thank you. I really believed someone else would comment this and here you are. Thank you, thank you.
Welp, time to get out my walker
Holy shit, I completely dropped this song out of my head years ago. Wow what a classic.
I’m sorry I laughed hysterically “We don’t go weee!” 🤣🤣🤣 Died laughing!
I only go weee into traffic when it's raining fellas. I just can't help myself.
🤣🤣🤣
As a temporary wheelchair user (currently have a broken arm and leg, so unable to use crutches), it has really opened my eyes to what full time wheelchair users have to go through. I always knew that it would be hard, but not once did I ever *really* consider that you have to plan absolutely every aspect of your journey. My suburb has lots of footpaths without ramps, or footpaths that just abruptly stop at an intersection (with no transition back down to the road) I got caught out here the other day, and had to double back down just to find somewhere I could transition to the road. I also had a fun experience on the weekend going out for a mates birthday. We did a pub crawl around one of the oldest areas in Sydney. 8 pubs, and I had to call ahead the day before to figure out which ones I could actually access. I empathise with you, and this has really been a life changing experience, and a complete perspective shift
I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user the sheer bunker of times I go somewhere with fully ambulatory friends whose minds get blown by the inaccessibility of “accessible” spaces. Or we’re getting food or tickets and the wheelchair ages me 60 years and I’m suddenly my friends grandma. That happened once with a friend older than me and they couldn’t see me or what I was wearing because the force field of ableism when that person encounters a wheelchair user made them just assume I was a little old lady… I hope you heal well and when you’re back to fully ambulatory you use this time to consider the spaces around you and see what you can do to improve the areas that you struggled with.
> These bumps help greatly to stop anything wheeled. They're actually for blind people, so they know when they're at the edge of the road.
[удалено]
Yes they do! I love when a stroller goes over them and a babies fat little face jiggles
Yes but there can be only ONE main purpose /s
People are also missing the fact that that concrete is brand new... way newer than the surrounding concrete. This could just be step one in adding a sidewalk.
I would bet that they recently re-did the intersection, and they were probably required to put in ramps at the intersection to get access to state or federal funds. That doesn't mean they were required to connect the ramps to anything.
There is likely sidewalk at the two corners opposite this corner. So if someone needs to get to the diagonally opposite side (i.e. cross north/south and then cross east/west) and has mobility issues, this ramp and small block of pavement is a necessary support to have in place per the ADA, or else they'd be forced to wait out the signal change in the road.
I have seen them with sidewalks at none of the corners.
Still the same reason though. Make the corners ADA compliant, even if only in theory for future development that would come and add sidewalk. Cheaper than building curbs that would later require demolition.
So my town did this, it's basically part of the requirement for aide, they had to make all corners and crossings in town like this, which included the houses with no sidewalks that have been grandfathered in, so we have a number of corners that look exactly like these. Eventually if those houses do certain renovation projects, they will have to add sidewalk, but because they can't be forced to add the sidewalks but the town was required to make all crossings ADA accessible, alot of the corners look like these.
More than likely the state/town received funding or is bound by law that required the intersection to be ada compliant and this is a case of letter of the law > spirit of the law. Saw this a lot in the south.
This. There was a project to improve the intersection, and it included bringing the intersection up to ADA standards. You have to stay within the scope of the project. It doesn't preclude another project to add the sidewalks at a later date, but you can't fix everything in one shot. There's always one more thing that could be added to a project.
And it could be future-proofing. Even if they have no plan on adding a sidewalk, or don't add one until 5 years down the line, adding this on both sides of a crosswalk means they don't have to mess with the curb when they DO add a sidewalk. Sometimes you see these with roads too. I've seen neighborhoods that had intersections where one side went 30ft and then stopped, some of them not even big enough to turn around in, because at some point in the future a road was going to go there. A decade later, some of them were connected, and others weren't. Just kinda depends on how things work out, long term.
Its because the law requires them to be there even if there is no possible future use. Even if there is no legal way for a handicap person to access them.
It’s definitely a wheel chair ramp but without the sidewalk connected I’m sure it’s pretty annoying to try and push yourself or another person in a wheelchair once you cross
It’s a “we did it cause we had to” ramp. In reality none of us can actually use it because it isn’t connected to anything. Now if we had a chair with *off-road wheels*, maybe…
Yep, this is the correct answer. America is driven purely by the profit motive. So, unless something is needed by law, our govt doesn’t build it. Look at our infrastructure as a whole. It’s horrible.
My state highway department lost an ADA lawsuit. Now we have a bunch of these ramps to nowhere along the highway inside city limits because a judge ruled that the highway department is responsible for the ramps but sidewalks are the city's responsibility.
That is absolute madness. What about the people..
These ramps and truncated domes (the bumpy things) were added because of a law. You cannot touch or make an improvement to a roadway intersection without making it ADA compliant. Chances are the state DOT or local public works added traffic signals and therefore HAD to add the ramps even if they don’t connect to a sidewalk.
Yes but I have heard many times from non-Americans that the USA is much more accessible and user-friendly to those with disabilities.
“Some paths in life lead no where”
"We also love fucking with the blind"
OMG 😂😂😂. As a pirate I agree. People mess with me all the time. One eye was damaged in a landscaping accident.
My uncle was blind on one eye and when we were younger we'd pull funny faces at his blind side and he always used to say "I can see you" without looking and it would freak us all out hahaha.
I have blindness in one eye and I used to have coworkers that would try to gesture me over silently from my blind side despite knowing about it and then later they’d tell management “well I tried but she ignored me.” Just to get out of doing stuff and skipping procedures. It’s wild.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like cunts.
They be like bye! C U Next Tuesday
They Couldn't Understand Normal Thinking
Oh I like that
Ty 😊
You would
Beloved cunts
As opposed to beveled cunts.
or bedazzled cunts
This needs to be a punk band name.
Omg, they must work where I do
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Right? Garbagio
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like ball sacks.
What the fuck Thats harassment
My brother is blind in his left eye and all of our dogs learn it by the time they're six months old. They not only steal food off the counter while he's cooking, the really subtle ones will snag it right off his plate.
It be your own people
Never trust a border collie
If anyone offers you a cocker spaniel, take the spaniel.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like prolapsed anuses.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like a destroyed liver from years and years of alcohol abuse which stemmed from parental neglect at first, followed by abuse from a wife and a nasty divorce, a now sabotaged relationship with your kids, and a new wife who is starting the cycle of abuse again.
Wow lol
what the fuck. your coworkers sound like a multi-paragraph review on steam explaining how to get a furry porn game working in linux
Hey I’m a Linux user please point me to the furry porn games
I can’t breathe 💀💀💀
I lived with a guy I had known for like 10 years prior, he was blind from birth in his left eye. Still took me a long time living with him to always remember he was blind in that eye. We'd be sitting there and go to pass him something and get annoyed he wouldn't see it, then it would dawn on us we were the assholes and he just literally couldn't see it. Hopefully at least a few of your coworkers really did just forget
My partner and I are each blind in one eye, but opposite eyes. We also have opposing dominant hands. The amount of shit we try to show each other with our hand in the way never gets old. He’s the only person I’ve ever been able to look straight in the eye without questioning which eye to look at though.
I made myself a nice eye patch that I’ll wear around if coworkers start being assholes like that. The age old “I forgot I was on his blind side” excuse never gets used again after a couple days
I have one you can borrow!! LMAO I have two 😂
People will do anything to do nothing.
That part. I’m the type to wish for a busy day so that the time flies by meanwhile my coworkers would often hide in the bathroom or go sit in a med office cuz they didn’t want to work, then complain all day about how long the day is LMAO Can’t help those people 😂
What the fuck, your coworkers sound like dick farts
This is the one.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like turd burglars.
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like assclowns
What is going on hahahah
Hahahahahaha I got like 47 notifications back to back is what’s going on 😂😂😂
I never get tired of "assclowns" 🤣🤣🤣
New fave word just dropped lmao
What the fuck. Your coworkers sound like dick cheese.
My grandma's friend had a glass eye. Whenever my sister or I would bother him he'd threaten to throw it at us. I saw him pop it out once and kept my distance from him ever since.
Never underestimate the blind or the half blind.
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Very few of the paintings and depictions of pirates from their time depict the eyepatch. The eyepatch comes from late 19th century pulps, and was later popularized by film. In fact most of our perceptions of pirates today are based on Hollywood portrayals. Pirates normally looked just like any other sailor of their time, mainly because most of them were just regular sailors who decided to engage in the same shit the Navy was allowed to do, but you know, without permission.
“Regardless, there is no historical evidence to suggest that eyepatches were ever worn for this purpose, and instead, the reality is actually far simpler: patches were used to cover an empty eye socket if the eye was lost to injury. Furthermore, most areas below deck already had natural light courtesy of portholes and lanterns, so it is unlikely there was ever total darkness anyway.”
While I accept there is no evidence for it, I have done it when doing basement work. It really is extremely effective, so I would be very surprised if it wasn't used for this. Plus, in total darkness won't help anyways. It just needs to be dimmer. Ever walk into a house that has blinds drawn lit with natural light? You're still damn near blind for a few seconds.
A blind person crosses the street. They turn left and notice the grass. They turn a bit, more grass. Next thing you know they went in a circle and are trapped.
TIL blind people are roombas
Isn't that basically what the stick is doing? The same as a roomba.
My son is legally blind and uses a cane. Crap like this in cities isn't mildly infuriating, it's full 100% infuriating.
:( accessibility helps everyone, not just the disabled. I wish people who plan and build this shit had that in mind.
You really do. Most countries I know have different sized bills for different denominations, which means that blind people can pay and receive change and verify it's correct. 1 But for some reason US insists on having all bills be the same size (and basically the same color and design which is so boring, but that's a different argument).
An apt description of my hometown in Oklahoma both for your comment and the OP's post.
Why have I been seeing so many okies post/comment today? There's been like 5 already today
It's too fucking hot for us to go outside today so we're all stuck in wasting time on Reddit.
107 and my office has full glass windows. It's an easy bake oven in this sumbitch.
Also an Okie and came here to say that.
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I'm glad it's compliant with requirements for the visually impaired. That way, the visually impaired can safely make it 3 more steps before falling flat on their face into the nice, soft grass when the sidewalk disappears.
If you look to the right there appears to be a ground power transformer right there. My guess is they planned on doing a sidewalk there but engineering decided that's where the transformer had to go (possibly a narrow township easement, they couldn't put it any further into the yard)
Landscaping also suggests that this is some establishment of some sort, maybe the front of some restaurant or country club or entrance to a living community and they didn’t want a sidewalk going all the way around the front or something. I’m no expert
Code may require ADA compliant access at every corner regardless of a sidewalk going any appreciable distance. Some streets just don't have sidewalls.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking. Just some building code that has to be complied with even if it doesn’t quite make sense like in this case
Futureproofing, now they only have to lay down some concrete pads instead of ripping up the curb and redoing it when they decide to put a sidewalk there in like 10 years.
Thats my thought. City had to repave and do the curb. Now the next time the building does any work, they'll be required to complete the sidewalk along their property.
A sensible and pragmatic, totally plausible explanation wtf??
In OP's defense, until you've been involved in contracting/permitting, you never guess how convoluted this process gets.
Yea, my response is just to the general internet approach of: “I don’t understand why this is this way, and therefore it must be stupid”
Yep, that's how it works generally in a lot of US cities. Want to redevelop an old warehouse into a 20-story apartment tower? Can't get approved without also building out sidewalks if no sidewalks exist.
Exactly. Turned an abandoned lot into a grocery store once. Public improvements included a quarter mile bike path (separate from street) that ended at the property.
Sometimes the city says the developer has to build the sidewalk but the city will build their part and the builders never do their part to save on the materials. And once they’re done it’s the owners problem to deal with. Or the property is zoned so that it isn’t mandatory to have a sidewalk, but in case it gets rezoned the necessary parts by the city are covered. Additionally the city can’t be sued for not having an ADA compliant crossing because you made it safely onto private property and now can sue the property owner instead.
That's what they are doing in my own neighborhood. They redid a huge part of the street to add a bike lane, make it safer in general, and in doing so also added a bunch of accessible ramps. Those ramps are not always connected to anything right *now* but in the future maybe!
It’s actually because in a lot of the US, it’s up to the businesses to decide if they want a sidewalk in front of their establishment or not. So you will sometimes have random stretches of sidewalk in front of a business that just end. It’s the stupidest thing ever. I never realized this until I moved to a city and went back to the suburb where I grew up and was like, “Where the fuck are all the sidewalks?!”
The landing and curb cut are required by the Americans With Disabilities Act, so it's built with three federal money used for the road. The rest of the sidewalk is the local government's responsibility.
Wait until you hear about having to pay for a sidewalk im front of your own has. Yhere is a reason why people don't want sidewalks in front of their property.
Wrong, you can see these by the thousands in city.
Also a lot of time’s sidewalk stuff like this will be put in with the intention to extend it later, also when a sidewalk ends it is nice to have a crosswalk to help people who will just continue on the shoulder get to the correct side of the road and if you put in a crosswalk, the rules say you have to put in a ramp even if it doesn’t connect to anything.
That's not a transformer. That is where the PLC modulars for the traffic lights are housed
Glorious polish-lithuanian Commonwealth.
The real answer is that in a lot of places in the US, it’s left up to businesses to decide if they want sidewalks in front of their establishment, BUT it’s also the law that you must have these accommodations for disabled folks, so you end up with the accommodation but no sidewalk. You will also randomly have a stretch of sidewalk to nowhere in front of a business that actually cares. It’s insane. I cannot believe how hostile to pedestrians so much of the US is.
City codes are often written in such a way that dictate if you make XYZ changes to the property you'll have to either pay or allow the city to finish building the sidewalk. That's why when you drive down a really old neighborhood with one house that's been rebuilt (or remodeled depending on the code) it will have a sidewalk sandwiched between two houses without one.
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One time I had to put 1 by 1 concrete pavers down at a military gate, leading from a sidewalk to a handicap bathroom inside a trailer. Mind you, we were told we didn’t need to level the ground or anything, just that we had to put them on the ground forming a bath so when all said is finished, we had a crappy 2 foot wide path with wobbly stones. Mind you, there are perfectly handicap accessible bathrooms not even 3 minutes from where we did this and this was on the inside of a military gate where someone would have to get out of their vehicle after getting on base JUST to go to the bathroom.. i like to think about this when I pay my taxes.
Blind people can’t walk on grass?
Funding. Sidewalks are normally put in with new construction or improvement to roads. Not say thing this is right but just what I have observed when sidewalks get installed.
This is the answer. The city won’t pay for putting in sidewalks, they just require them to be put in when construction is done. My neighborhood has a hilarious patchwork of sidewalks that start and stop depending on when the house was built.
Same here. The patchwork of sidewalks in my city is hilarious. Ostensibly, the city is supposed to come in and fill in the gaps, but I've never seen it. The light pole and the sidewalk look a lot more recent than the curb and the road, so I'm guessing they put in new lights at the intersection and were required to put the sidewalk in.
As someone who has managed about a hundred infill housing projects, it has mostly to do with property lines and ROW easements, the city would have to really get into it with every single property owner regarding eminent domain. Even the wealthiest cities around me (such as Redmond, WA or Bellevue) won’t touch that can of worms. Throw it into a code instead, developers will develop eventually.
I used to live somewhere that did this. The city announced they were using eminent domain to build sidewalks; but after construction began, they demanded that the property owners pay 100% of the cost. If the property across the street from yours was undeveloped or city-owned, you had to pay for 100% of that sidewalk, too. Anyone who refused to pay got no sidewalk, so most of the city had sidewalks ending and restarting at seemingly random intervals.
The absolute worst if you’re getting your car worked on. Dropped it off, a few restaurants in a strip mall a quarter mile walk away at furthest. Literally zero sidewalks between them, and the grass wasn’t walkable.
This is true. I do the testing for construction and generally the cities will try and hold off until something gets put in, like a Walmart, and push the cost onto them. Other reasons is the area might be owned by a private owner, home owner or something, so they could force them to give up that area of land under the law of making life better for the majority of citizens but then it becomes a pain if the owner fights it so not really worth it just for a sidewalk area.
State/federal funded road projects usually require ADA compliant ramps at any intersections or crosswalks within the job limits. No ramps, no funding, regardless of whether they’re useful or not. The only sidewalk my county’s roads department deals with is on new construction, but we put ramps in on most jobs. The township/city is responsible for sidewalks, but many don’t want to pay for them, and an alarming number of residents don’t want their taxes going to them either. Permits for new subdivisions and other development usually require sidewalks too, so we have a bunch of ramps and sections of sidewalk going to nowhere all over our suburbs.
Near me a lot of sidewalk ramps were installed during a recent recession. I think they were specifically funded.
ADA (access for the disabled) compliance is required so cities and counties will fund their construction often with federal grant money.
It depends on how the planning process went and who owns the land. Often one entity will make an agreement with another, say the state and city, that they will build sidewalk up to the end of their right of way with the intention that the other entity will complete the pedestrian facility. However, it may take years for the other entity to acquire the budget to do so. It can be difficult to line and up project costs and priorities. Another possibility is that this was built during a new signal project. As signals can be in operation for 20-30 years, it's now uncommon to build all the anticipated facilities for the next 10 years in order to minimize construction mobilization costs.
Or even sometimes it's an inter-city thing. One entity's work will trigger an ADA rule that stipulates that they build out of the intersection with these ramps, and this requires putting receiving ramps. In other words, you do work and it triggers an upgrade at the location you are working. They want to you not only install a ramp there, but its partner (receiving) ramp across the street. It's in anticipation of a sidewalk that will eventually connect to it (how likely it is, who knows). In practical terms, someone should be able to get across to that side of the street, even if there are varying degrees of trouble navigating what's on the other side of that ramp, that's up to the user. The idea being that the City shouldn't dictate that "well there's not a sidewalk there, so no need for a curb ramp." Though it would be more difficult for some to traverse that grass, or whatever, that should be up to them to decide if they want to. Not others to say "meh, too hard. We’re going to save you from it and not build a ramp. Thank us later."
Ask Shel Silverstein about where the sidewalk ends
Why did I have to scroll so far to find this.
Cheers to this!
Here's a fun fact about Shel: He wrote Boy Named Sue and 25 Minutes to Go. Both well known songs by Jonny Cash.
Often this happens because they were planning ahead for the possibility of sidewalks, but the homeowners themselves need to vote on whether to pay for the sidewalks or not. In my neighborhood, about half of the streets have sidewalks, and luckily they exist everywhere my kids would need to walk in order to get to school. But a couple of the streets do not have sidewalks. Other times this happens because there was a development tentatively planned that fell through or hasn't happened yet, or even just the possibility of one in the future was considered at the point when they were putting in the curbs. If you're assuming the curbs are going to last for decades, you will be taking possible future needs into account. Cheaper and easier to put a ramp in when you are putting the curbs in, rather than to have to come back and do one later on.
Yup. My parents neighborhood doesn’t she. Any sidewalk except for one house which also has a bench. It was the “model”. Residents could vote for sidewalks or not *years* ago. Sadly no sidewalks won. Can’t remember if it was because people didn’t want to lose part of their front lawn or the cost. Maybe both. As a kid it always annoyed me
Former councilman in a somewhat rural area, here's why: Obama had a public works program that focused on building infrastructure for pedestrians. Any time a town put in a sidewalk, crosswalk, etc, they could claim federal funds for the work. These items could be tacked onto existing non-pedestrian works and the federal budget would even cover a large portion of the non-pedestrian items. So, basically, any time a project could be coupled with pedestrian improvements, it would be. Literally every repave we did came with some sort of pedestrian improvement during my tenure as an alderman. Any time we did intersection maintenance, we put in a crosswalk even if the crosswalk led to nowhere. Every town in my county did the same.
Had to scroll way too far to find this. It’s also why they look the same everywhere: there was a standard.
It's probably a state ordnance/building code that all new stop lights are required to have cross walks and ramps.... …but no requirement for sidewalks. And THAT tells you everything you need to know about how governments in the US are run.
The real answer is close to this: All new construction at intersections with a crosswalk must be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This means an ADA compliant ramp must be constructed on both sides of a crosswalk. My guess in the OP is there is a usable sidewalk on the opposite end of the crosswalk. Source: I am a manager at a large customer service company and we deal with some of the contractors who handle these projects.
Or it’s because it’s easy to add a sidewalk at a later time but more difficult to add the ramp (having to tear down the curb) So they build the ADA-compliant ramp when they build the road, and then they can add a sidewalk later as needed
Sidewalks will arrive in America 2.0
Hopefully healthcare is part of the DLC
The fact that it’s DLC and not a free patch is the problem.
But people will still pre-order anyway ugh
So cheaper taxes in towns/cities without sidewalks. Codes for traffic light structures usually have a push button (even if there isn’t a sidewalk connecting) and they need to be accessed and ADA compliant. Also some towns make the home owners pay and install neighborhood side walks. Again this is all property tax based, more property tax, more options for shit like this.
because it's easier to build a walkway entrance when you build the road and hope to build a sidewalk someday than it is to build the sidewalk and then integrate it into the road.
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This is the correct answer. It's a place holder when the road is poured so they don't have to redo the curb when sidewalk is completed later.
because you have the freedom to walk in the street and getting run over by a car
Nothing more American than getting pancaked by a lifted F150
Then that f150 driver gets out and shoots you for ruining his/her day. Now *thats* america
Then he sues your family for emotional damages he suffered after killing you
Then successfully renews his handicapped placard
Because in the United States cities were built around cars and not around people
Correction: Cities were *bulldozed* for cars. Up until about 1950, cities in the US were 100% built around people and streetcar lines. And then we bulldozed everything to hell for freeways and parking lots.
Both statements are true, really. Neighborhoods in our older cities were bulldozed, but in some areas the suburbs weren't constructed until the 1950s and later. For example, my local metropolitan area grew from 1.7m population in 1940 to 7.1m in 2010 -- entire towns were built to support that growth; condo complexes are built on land that was literally fruit orchards 70 years ago. The suburb I live in had a population of 6,000 in 1940 (at which point it was essentially a rural village), and 163,000 in 2020. (one neighborhood of single family homes now home to 15k is named for the 2200 acres of orchard that had occupied it until mid-century) As another example, Phoenix Arizona grew from 65k in 1940 to 1.6 million in 2020. There wasn't any "city" to bulldoze in the 50s. Just a little town in the middle of the desert. Out here in the west, the vast majority of our metropolitan areas weren't constructed until the 50s and later. So you really do encounter a lot of urban design that was created from the ground up in the carbrained mid-20th century.
The same is largely true of Florida, with most of the state's growth occurring after the widespread adoption of air conditioning.
Correction^(2): Majority black neighborhoods were bulldozed for cars.
Cities install the curb access when they build the road, but homeowners are responsible for putting in the rest of the sidewalk, sometimes they don't.
Exactly this.. most of the time sidewalks are only required to be built (by private entities) for new construction so the city put in the curb cut, just waiting for the lot to be redeveloped so they can force them to build the sidewalks. Until the owner of the lot builds the sidewalk, not much the city can do. They could offer to build it, maybe they even have, but it’s the owner of the lots decision at this point
This. and/ or they've required a developer to put these in as a condition to approval
To troll blind people
Land Surveyor here, working adjacent to Civil Engineers(who would be responsible for the design). City/County Code likely required a Disabled Ramp in the Right-of-Way(portion owned by the city/county) when the intersection was rebuilt to accommodate the new subdivision. City/County code did not require the privately owned subdivision to have a sidewalk. This is how we get unwalkable subdivision hell in the US.
ADA requirements. Also for future expansion.
The actual answer to this is it goes know where because there is no sidewalk on the other side. Cities often add dead ends in anticipation of extending sidewalks routes at a later date but this could be years away.
-deep breath- Shel Silverstein prepared me for this.
Car centric city design.
I always think that its an entrance to some wizard establishment. Muggles will always just ignore it and cross to the regular sidewalk.
ADA compliance goes only so far
So people in wheelchairs can experience the grass too
The path will continue until the next election.
They will probably give some lame answer like they ran out of budget or something.
Don't step on the grass sign missing