Naturally: Beacon Hill group sues to stop historically inaccurate handicap ramps

if we force the elitists on Beacon Hill to accept a standard that is used everywhere else in the City? I seriously doubt it. Especially when the issue here is - gasp - asethetics, which is both subjective and indicative of a very shallow mindset.

Capitulating to the demands of a minority sets a very bad precedent. ANd tha't is the reason the City is fighting this.

And it does provide a sense of how haphazard it is.

It leaves the question of whether this is just an initial sortie that signals a citywide effort because of big Fed money and lots of contractors to fatten like woodchucks in advance of some off season torpor.

Or is it just the city trying to wrap this chest pounding display linger up?

It would be cool to go out and make a photo inventory of the melange of ramp types.

Google plus has things like Fire Hydrant Friday but I don't imagine a lot of photographers would get pumped for Sidewalk Ramp Saturday.

Meanwhile, back at the Trimountain...

Brick red cuts, as you call them, were proposed by the city "terra cotta" ramps vs the yellow, but rejected by BH residents.

Thank you for pointing out where the city has been inconsistent and needs to upgrade or colorize the ramp somehow. DPW isn't perfect. But they have a hi-vis standard and alternative NOW.

Also, the brick machine is nice, but I have seen no brick paved surfaces in the Northeast that survive winters with countless freeze-thaw cycles without getting uneven, and not really all that accessible!!!

You know the hill could use more color. One tires of all the brick red in this city.
A few splashes of primary color could do wonders.
See for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XObZXYkiMO0

Not by the CIty, but by the elitist folk on Beacon Hill who are unwilling to accept the COMMONLY USED standards for these ramps on a totally subjective principle.

just the other day...

I really think the hill's historic sidewalks, in general, are way to narrow. Methinks they need to be significantly widened.

Per Adamg:

"Mayor Walsh's office contends the city has been reaching out to Beacon Hill for more than two years and that people in wheelchairs and the visually impaired deserve the same access to Beacon Hill sidewalks as they do to sidewalks in the Back Bay, South End and Bay Village historic districts, where the city has been installing ramps without lawsuits."

Dig up the fill and dump it back on the hill. Then restore the city to its network of islands separated by natural intertidal zones.

"In December, members of the Beacon Hill Architectural Commission voted down the city’s proposal to install pedestrian ramps and tactile warning strips in the neighborhood. They held that the ramps and yellow plastic strips would affect the Colonial character of the streets."

And

"However, after a team from the city’s Inspection Services Department concluded this week that the neighborhood is unsafe for people with disabilities, Mayor Walsh said he has the authority to overturn the Architectural Commission’s December decision."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2014/07/18/beacon-hill-ge...

It's nonsense.

Shut up and comply like everyone else.

I like Walsh - but he's going to come out on the bottom on this one as he will ultimately get blamed for the delay under his watch.

It's not going to stick to Walsh any more than the big, costly cock-up over the reconstruction of the Copley Sq. subway portal stuck to the pig-headed MBTA.

The politics of identity and class are going to trump reason here, and the residents will eat the blame for the delay.

Do you have a cite to where the Beacon Hill Civic Association has stated it will pay for the more expensive materials it is seeking? I feel like I have not seen that mentioned. I do not see it listed on the BHCA web page in their statement about their objections.

I bet at the start of this there were residents who were opposing any ramps, but if this is the proposal that is on the table now, why not?

Consequences:
Beacon hill people -- they spend some money, they get ramps in whatever pretty color they desire.
People who need disabled access -- they get access.
City -- saves some money, doesn't get the satisfaction of forcing its way on a group of city residents who have been irritating it for some time.

So if it really is just about that last point, then that is pretty petty, and should be something we all have a problem with.

I think there are occasions when allowing the rich to opt out of a publicly provided service can dangerous (i.e. lead to underfunding of that service over the long-term) but I cant see that argument applying here.

The trimountain is just a bit of conceit that can sit there for all anyone really cares.

It's a great dartboard though.

The wealth inequality is a far more pressing matter because there is growing consensus that it is a rigged game with lots of rents and fees in strange places, banking fiascos, earning stagnation and so forth.

Fixing it is easy... just roll tax rates back to the 1950s and that old time GOP prosperity will bounce back.

I mean Eisenhower GOP, not the nutjob shills for rich assholes we have now.

In some strange Orwellian somersault, the principle 'Takers' have contrived to gull the ever distracted public into thinking they are 'Makers'.

Once the incentive is gone to hog huge useless piles while cheer-leading the pauperization of everyone else, it'll sort itself out nicely without pitchforks and torches.

Those people from {neighborhood} suck!

Charles Street sidewalks are very tiny for what they are expected to handle.

It's sort of understandable when the sidewalks are on one of BH's small streets and there are historic space constraints. But Charles Street is not a small street. You can line up 5 cars side-by-side in the motorway. If Charles Street is supposed to be a preeminent shopping street in a historic neighborhood, it makes no sense to have tiny sidewalks. That strikes me as a decision that was made in the 1950s, treating Charles Street as a bypass rather than a neighborhood street. The fact that wheelchairs can barely get through, and that people are tripping and falling, is just the result of incredibly stupid design. It's senseless to fight over scraps of space when there is so much right-of-way available in the overengineered motorway.

The next fight that the city should pick, after the ramps get resolved, is to do something about the tiny sidewalks on Charles Street and also on Bowdoin Street. There's no reason that Charles Street needs 3 travel lanes going in the same direction. That's highway-like design. If it were up to me, I'd restore two-way travel flow with a single lane in each direction. No reason for the one-way travel, it's just confusing. Then have parking/loading lanes. And widen the sidewalks up to a minimum of 10 feet each, more if possible. That's what a shopping street should look like.

One of the reasons I have little sympathy for the BH residents is that I feel they are partially responsible for the ridiculous sidewalk situation on Charles Street and Bowdoin Street. If they claim to be a historic, walkable district, then those sidewalks should have been expanded years ago. The fact that they weren't tells me that the residents, many of whom are long-term, are full of bullshit. They don't actually care about people with disabilities, nor do they care about making it easier to walk. Maybe it is true, as Bob says, that it is all about the color and that's easily fixable. Or maybe there's something else going on here. I'm inclined to think the latter, again, because of the existing conditions on Charles and Bowdoin Streets.

Nobody is opposing ramps.

This is about keeping government in line now?

Cut the horse shit, man. It hasn't taken two years of discussing and now finalizing this because the government is the one that has been out of control.