Ramps to nowhere

What better way to induce the economy to misallocate resources than to use federal dollars and/or regulations to bribe and/or extort people to do crazy things?
This summer, Detroit spent tens of thousands of dollars replacing sidewalk wheelchair ramps in little traveled areas.
The bankrupt city put in ramps, costing about $10,000 per intersection, along crumbling sidewalks along Warren near Conner. In one half-mile stretch, from St. Jean to Cadillac, there are 52 new sets of ramps.
Some face brick walls. Others provide access to an empty lot where Helen Joy Middle School stood until it was razed in 2009. On many corners, sidewalks end after the ramps.
"You drive down some of these streets and there are blocks of no houses, but pretty new curbs," said Sherman Hayes, 84, a retired nurse who lives nearby on Lakewood Street. "Look at all these ramps to nowhere. It makes my blood boil."
Detroit officials say they have no choice. The work is the latest in a decade-long, court-imposed effort to force Detroit into compliance with federal handicapped accessible laws.
The whole city of Detroit should become a museum exhibit. It reminds me of the old joke about the service evaluation: "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."

7 comments:

Grim said...

I figured the excuse would be "stimulus spending." The honesty about the law's absurdity is refreshing.

raven said...

Agreed- I wish we saw more of it- as in "we did not hire you because you are covered in face tats, cannot read or write, and were an hour late to your interview."
Or, "this ladder costs $175 instead of $80 because of all the money we have to spend to keep the liability lawyers at bay."
Or "the reason this park is closed is because it is a way to leverage more money out of you in taxes."

The list is endless- people who can read between the lines have learned, but vast numbers have no real idea about a lot of actions taken.

Eric Blair said...

It probably was stimulus spending. All sorts of stuff was done under that.

I'm a bit curious about what roads the ramps were built on. I think Federal highways were mandated for the things.

In my county, there is a federal highway, that snakes its way through several towns, and all the intersections got those things, where as the local streets did not.

douglas said...

We just got ramps on our intersections- purely residential neighborhood in hills steep enough that no one in their right mind would use a wheelchair- probably even a power chair. Been here my whole life and never have seen a wheelchair or powerchair going up the street. At least now I know why they got put in.

Texan99 said...

Denounce yourself for building your home in a naturally barrier-fraught environment: too many steep hills.

jaed said...

We've got the brightly colored plastic squares here too (to make the ramps "fully ADA compliant). Endless construction of "green streets", also - all funded (partially) by stimulus money.

- The "green streets" are fruitless attempts to avoid building the storm sewer system that should have been built when this area was first built up. Basically it consists of installing lots of cement dirt-filled boxes so that water will drain into the soil instead of the combined sewer system (and, non-coincidentally, replacing existing street parking with these things - harrassing car drivers is an ongoing city project). They should just build a storm sewer system, but they can't get stimulus money for that. So.

- The corners in question already had ramps (here). The brightly colored squares now being installed at each corner are made of a plastic that's slippery when it's wet. It rains a lot here. (I've already sprained an ankle once when taking a walk.)

Sometimes I despair.

Ymar Sakar said...

Part of showing the slaves they are free. After all, they are paid to work and they get free stuff, how is that not freedom, slaves?