City Forces Bus Benches to be Removed
City Forces Bus Benches to be Removed
The donated handmade wooden benches are not ADA compliant so the city is forcing the builder to remove them. So having literally nothing is the alternative. Also the city says the builder can put the benches in their parks, but wouldn’t that also need to be ADA compliant?
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For one thing, all benches must have a 5-by-8-foot concrete pad to be ADA compliant.
Is this a Portland thing? In LA I see a lot of concrete benches, but I also see a lot of metal ones and in NYC I would see (possibly grandfathered in) wooden ones.
Pad, as in underneath the bench.
Ohh I see, for stability purposes that makes a bit more sense. But it can’t possibly be that expensive to have the city just pour concrete in those spots, or to let volunteers do it.
That's way bigger than the footprint. Usually you have big level concrete areas around doors for wheelchairs, for example.
Even if it’s 3x the size of the bench, it’s concrete, not a multimillion dollar building, and the community clearly wants benches. If the wooden ones are legitimately unfit for the public then they should install proper benches. But just pouring concrete would probably be cheaper.
Muh taxes! There's probably a lot of larger priorities eating up all of Portland's budget.
The compliance rule is a stability thing underneath the bench, so that people in wheelchairs and other mobility devices can maneuver around them. Not that the bench itself needs to be concrete.
I think that's correct, but I'm failing to see the need for a person sitting in a wheelchair to be able to approach a bench on a pad.
Are they expecting people sitting in a wheelchair to be able to transition to sitting on the bench for some reason?
There are tons of other mobility issues people have short of wheelchairs like mobility scooters, crutches, those scooter like things for leg injuries. Or they might just like to park next to the bench and hang out with someone they know, like a regilar person.
But mostly because when the bench is mounted to the concrete it gives the bench a solid base so that if someone is off balance and leans really hard against the bench, it won't topple over. Think elderly people, or people with balance issues.