The other day I went over to Westport Village, that Universal-Studio-back-lot looking "renovation" of what used to be the Camelot Shopping Center, at Westport Rd. and Herr Lane. Looks like somebody had a bad idea for Cute. Or a Ye Trendie Village Malle, or some such.
But I digress.
In their effort to be Trendy, developers decided on -- yes! cobble stones! -- at all the intersections. See photo.
This kind of stuff falls into the realm of things that are Legally Accessible But Uncool. Years ago some wags called these kinds of intersections Podiatry Squares, for obvious reasons. But there they are -- a whole bunch of them scattered at, uh, intersections in this Westport Village creation.
And you'll see in the photo above that there are ramps, too. Below is a photo of another ramp; one that ramps directly from the parking lot to the sidewalk. Below that is a detail of the lip.
All these ramps are, I suspect, considered very Legal. Red ramps, to boot. Must be something about vision impairment. But you'll see that the ramps -- and all of them appear to be alike in this -- they all end in a big lip.
This photo doesn't really do the lip justice. It's a huge lip -- well over an inch high -- probably 2 inches.
I already know what the developers will say if called on this. "Oh, we have to make them high because we'll eventually fill in with more blacktop."
It's something I've heard before when I've called folks on ramps like this. But it's a specious argument, becuase there's no reason why adding additional blacktop to an already-flush-with-the-street ramp will make it less accessible. It's inaccessible NOW. That's the problem.
Just for the record: the parking lot does appear to be getting the requisite striping. Most of the ramps that empty into the parking lot have the diagonal "no parking" stripes at their ends. This one didn't just because they hadn't finished painting on the strips. Since there are ramps every couple of hundred feet (I said it was all very Legally Accessible!) and the others were already striped, I am not too worried about this.
I am worried about the Lips.
Bumpy access at Westport Village, and a lot of lip
'They could have all been accessible!'
In past months I have had occasion to be driving west on Muhammad Ali to the medical complex. Driving there, I pass the massive construction project going on just to the east of downtown Louisville. It's officially called the Clarksdale HOPE VI Revitalization. It's the old Clarksdale housing projects, torn down and being rebuilt.
The blocks and blocks of buildings going up seem to be townhouses. Lovely designs -- don't look like the old low-income "projects" of my youth -- and of course, that's part of the idea behind all this.
Except.
Except they all have steps. Just like brownstones in New York. Steps up to the front door. Steps as far as I could see, creating the streetscape. Steps.
Now I have no doubt that the grand poobahs in charge of this are complying with all "laws" -- I'm sure there's a percentage set aside for "the handicapped" by law.
That's not what I'm getting at. I'm getting why we continue -- continue!! -- to build housing stock so that if we get older we're going to be forced into a nursing home, out of our homes. Continue to build places like this so if you've got somebody in the family who's in an accident or has diabetes and loses their legs you're going to have to be on a waiting list for one of the very few of those "percentages" that are accessible.
Why does it have to be this way? Is there no vision?
Every morning when I drove past this array of homes with steps, I could hear my friend Eleanor Smith of Atlanta's voice: "And they could have all been accessible!"
Yes, they could have.
Eleanor is the mother of the concept known as visitability. You don't hear much about it in Louisville.
These units I've been passing on Muhammad Ali look to me as though they're inspired by what's called the New Urbanism -- one of the silliest examples of which is Norton Commons, way the heck out in what used to be called the boonies.
And to hear Eleanor tell it, the New Urbanists simply don't like access.
Can't get there from here...
So here we are at Wild Eggs (3985 Dutchmans Lane) - reviewed this weekend in the C-J.
Thing is, the accessible parking is way way back in the back, where you have to try to roll past all these cars and squeeze in the narrow passageway -- ooh, can I squeeze past that bench there? oops! watch the planter! -- oops! can I get around that post? Several of 'em -- see 'em? There's a newspaper box sticking out. We're taking the photo right by the box there.
Here's the thing: This photo we took standing right at the front door. It's flat right there -- it's flat all along there. There's parking right at the front door. You can see the cars.
Sure, they could have put the accessible parking right here at the front door.
But nooooo, it's way back in the back.
Any idea why?
This is a NEW RESTAURANT! Just opened!!!
How can they get by with this ridiculous "path of travel" problem?
What to do about blocked access?
Michelle of consuming louisville has posted a comment about the problems wheelchair users have in the Highlands with cars parking up on the sidewalks on side streets, making the sidewalks impassable.
Cars are a problem -- so are bike racks, bikes, news boxes, big planters, benches bolted to the sidewalk, not to mention those ever-popular outdoor tables in front of coffee shops. Funny how everything can seem to be put onto the sidewalk except ramps. IPL won't permit them to extend onto sidewalks because they block the right of way. (See my blog entry that touches on that.)
Michelle writes,
When cars are preventing access do you know who we should call to address the problem? In the past I've called the local police district but they seem less than pleased with such calls.
I know who I'd call, if I were in a wheelchair: I'd call TV news.
It's sad but amazing how much doesn't change unless a public spotlight shines on it.
I know folks in chairs who have complained repeatedly about folks parking illegally in those accessible parking spots. One guy who use to frequent Jillian's back when it was over there around Baxter used to say he complained so much that the cops came to regard him as a troublemaker -- but the spots never did get cleared.
What's this about?
Many folks don't believe that there's real discrimination against wheelchair users -- it's just that folks don't know what to do, or that providing access costs too much. But too many tales like this one make me think that belief is just a bit simplistic.
Back to the good old organizing tactics:
One person in a wheelchair is a whiner, but two or 3 of them, particularly if they have a crew of supporters, can really make a significant point. That's especially true in Louisville, I think, where lots of wheelchair activism doesn't occur so much -- not like, say, in Denver or Chicago.
Look at the protests Corey Nett's treatment engendered.
I'd love to see similar protests over these impassable sidewalks.
Lack of curb ramps force wheelchairs into street
This a.m.'s C-J brought us the Highlands/Crescent Hill Neighhborhoods weekly pullout, with its story New sidewalks coming to Brownsboro Road. And there was a photo of wheelchair user Kay Olges tooling down the very nice sidewalk, with its very nicely sloped curb ramps, along Payne in front of the Clifton Center. No complaints about these sidewalks from us.
However, it made me think about an issue that gets too little attention, and so I thought a blog entry was in order.
In Martha Elson's story, I read that Olges was
able to get to most places using the sidewalks and streets, but she said some sidewalks are uneven and more asphalt is needed at some railroad crossings.
That made me think of how wheelchair users are often forced into the streets due to the lack of curb ramps. It's a problem nationwide -- one that Elson's story did not touch on, except by inference. Maybe Olges didn't mention to Elson how dangerous that is.
But wheelchair users have been killed because of the lack of sidewalks. Stories about that here and here.