Deadly Curb Cuts

In the past we have looked at what a proper, well-maintained, curb cut looks like and how it can make crossing the street simple and uneventful. However, there are exceptions to the rules that are beyond ridiculous. Last week we looked at the consequences of using a combined variety of construction materials, such as concrete, asphalt and paving stones, to build a sidewalk and what one winter in our climate can do to the usefulness of those sidewalks.

This week we look at the consequences of some of the extreme, but far too common, examples of when those materials shift over a few winters.

I know that scale is often difficult to perceive in a photograph so let me give you a hard number. The lip you see in the photo above is located just down the street from our house and is nearly 10 cm or 4 inches tall. This is dangerous on its own to come down off the road to a drop that significant but it's more than that. You're coming down into a gutter that immediately begins sloping upward, making the perfect grove for the front wheels of a wheelchair to dig in and jolt the user with more than enough force to compromise balance which could easily send them out of their chair, or tip the chair over.

Traveling the opposite direction, you're coming down a rutted slope (I understand the importance of those ruts for the visually impaired) which introduces vibrations to begin with just before slamming into a solid wall of asphalt. The perfect example of this is downtown by Citizen Café. Descending the concrete sidewalk, the roadway has crumbled with numerous holes in the asphalt at the bottom of a very steep curb cut. Seeing what I was about to run into, I was able to stop my chair, after a bit of uncontrolled sliding down the steep curb cut, and climb back up. Thankfully the driveway to an automotive shop was close by and the street was quiet enough that I did not feel in danger jaywalking to get across to the café. This was downtown, just a few blocks away from the ideal curb cut shown in the post linked to above.

Under ideal circumstances I could, as a C5-C6 quadriplegic, very slowly navigate this lip to descend with a degree of safety but to climb up that lip would be a challenge because of the difficulty of popping a wheelie while rolling down a hill. Because of that it would need to be done by climbing it from a nearly stopped position, eliminating the much needed momentum to make the climb doable. In this instance I had not only a camera bag but some lighting equipment with me in order to make the photo. I had to find far less dangerous transitions to safely get to the location, make the photo and get home safely.

Rounded curbs with reasonable gutters would be safer than these curb cuts with terrible transitions. What I cannot understand is why the annual pothole repair crews cannot be instructed to either fill in these transitions with asphalt or cold mix when they are in the area or to smooth them out out with the equipment they have for preparing potholes for repair. I understand that either option has its problems but how can this not be a priority?

The problem with filling it in is that it could affect drainage and curb cuts like these are already notorious for filling up with sand and debris, carried to them by rain and other water draining as it should in the gutters of the street. The problem with shaving down the asphalt is that the integrity of the road in those places may be compromised. My argument to that is if it is an annual task appropriate small repairs should be able to be made easily, regularly, and without long-term damage to the road.

I know that it's difficult to predict how land will settle over time, and the soil in our neighborhood is very sandy, but when this happens it simply should be the city's duty to fix these shiftings. I would expect the amount of taxes we pay in these new areas of the city to at least provide us a safe place to go for a stroll.

I still insist that the CPA wheelchair relay take place outside in places like this. Get our Mayor and other "celebrities" wheeling across this, falling face first in the concrete and maybe that would bring a little bit of action in our city's accessibility instead of just the lip service we receive every year from them.

Solution: I'm thinking that we should be reporting these as potholes but I do not feel we are a large enough proportion of the population to garner any action from those who have the power and the money.

Sidewalk Construction Material Transitions

In approximately 1990 the city of Swift Current replaced their concrete sidewalks downtown with paving stones. Before the end of one short winter those paving stones had shifted, heaved and cracked. This resulted in difficulty shoveling, tripping hazards, weed growth, and years of regular maintenance to maintain sidewalks that were about as safe as the cobblestone streets of old Montréal.

Moving forward in time there are numerous examples of mixed construction materials being placed side-by-side in designs planned by someone who obviously has no idea what our climate does to surfaces each yearly cycle of the weather. Above you can see an example of paving stone mixed with concrete at the Preston Crossing Shopping Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Yes, there is just enough room for my model to wheel on the concrete between the paving stones but those paving stones do cross the entire sidewalk in places with 4-6 cm ridges which require a slow crossing or to pop a wheelie over top as you roll, if you are physically capable of doing so. Should you be traveling beside someone, why should we always be expected to switch sides or interrupt our flow because of poor design? What if I want to wheel on the road side of the sidewalk to protect my wife, who is on my right, from oncoming traffic in a most chivalrous manner? The inward slope to the grating containing a tree, weeds, and sand is not too much of a problem now. However, when this centre was built those grates were hollow below the metal and wide enough to swallow a wheel from a wheelchair or a cart. This is dangerous and, as always my common argument is applicable, here as well, what about someone pushing a stroller?

This is an example of poor design that is mostly an inconvenience. It can be seen anywhere that concrete, paving stones or asphalt meet. The gaps, heaves and ridges after one or two winters take away most of the smooth function of surface transitions like these. All of the aesthetic qualities are removed, if not worse than if one material were used, and I question how many shovels, plow blades or snowblowers have been damaged trying to clear the snow on the above sidewalks.

Next week we will look at something that is outright dangerous. I've shared about the helpfulness of properly made, maintained and implemented curb cuts. This time we will look at a failed design and failed maintenance that exceeds the inconvenience shown in this post and moves to an unexpected hazard.

Solution: Those organizations charged with the duty of informing designer and planners need to get the information in the right hands, including city officials who can prevent exclusionary designs like this from ever being made in the first place. Stamped concrete is a more costly material but has much greater longevity than paving stones, if aesthetics are insisted upon.

Ramps - My Van

After a fairly worry free ownership of a Dodge Grand Caravan, modified to have pneumatic suspension by Van Action, it was good to upgrade to a mass produced product that is the Braun Rampvan. Because they manufacture tens of thousands of these each year, with dealership and repair support in most major centers, it gave me much greater confidence in the ability to have a problem diagnosed and fixed quickly, should one arise. When the pneumatic suspension system on my Grand Caravan developed a leak finding it was incredibly difficult and when it was thought to be found and repaired it was not long before the problem resurfaced.

It was an excessive source of anxiety for me because that van could not be driven without that pneumatic suspension. It functioned by inflating the suspension every time the van was to be used. If the compressor that inflated the suspension were to fail it would be mere minutes before the van would be unsafe to drive. I was never stranded anywhere but with the compressor cutting in every 60 seconds my concerns over it having excessive wear or overheating and failing completely were not without merit. With a Braun Rampvan the rear suspension is compressed each time the user wants to enter or exit the van. If this system were to fail the ramp may be a bit steep but the vehicle would be perfectly drivable.

The ramp on these vans can vary in steepness from a grade of 1:7 to a grade of 1:9, when parked on a flat surface. This depends on the distance the floor is dropped and the style of ramp. In the case of mine, a Toyota Sienna, the floor had to be dropped 12 inches, which resulted in a slightly more gradual incline than in my friend Paul's Honda Odessy which has a 10 inch drop floor, but a different style ramp that is steeper for the first third, then more gradual for the top two thirds. One good push will get you over the steeper bottom half of his ramp then the rest of your climb is easy. The ramp on my van has only a slightly steeper bottom half and requires just a little more than one full push to get over that hump. You cannot always count on being able to, but when the opportunity to park next to a curb or sidewalk comes, take it. Your ramp will be virtually flat.

These differences between vehicles and ramps can be difficult to determine which will work the best based on your physical ability. An authorized dealer should be able to provide you with demonstration models to try. Other technology, such as hill climber brakes, are available to assist in the process. They will be covered in the future and I hope to complete compiling a video we recorded the raw footage for to demonstrate the difficulty of climbing each ramp on each van by two quadriplegics of slightly different levels of neurological function.

If there's one thing I have learned about vehicles it is that necessity truly is the mother of invention. When I had a ramp I needed to be able to climb my determination made it possible in a short amount of time. The same could be said for difficult transfers and many other physical things I needed to be able to accomplish independently. Determination and practice go a long way.

Other adaptations to the vehicle will be covered in future posts.

Source: Authorized adapted vehicle reseller and modifiers.