Much like my post the other night regarding trans issues and the differences and my total ignorance, let me also confess that I have never personally appreciated the ADA until the last week. I always supported it because it just makes sense, but it never personally impacted me and I never personally experienced the benefits (other than the benefit we all get when a significant portion of our society now has increased mobility and a vastly enhanced quality of life) until I spent the last week hobbling around with a busted up knee.
It’s slowly getting better, and I was right about it just being a stretch, but the idea of walking on these icy streets just puts the fear of the FSM into me, and I have been walking with a walking stick the whole week. And let me tell you, when you get to a corner, after navigating a block of icy sidewalks, it is like a reprieve to use ramped curbs to cross the street and then walk up a ramp into the store.
So there is that. We do this shit for a reason. Not to shit on Ayn Rand or make the Koch brothers have a sad because they will have to spend an extra .000005% making their facilities accessible, but because having facilities accessible to everyone is good for, well, everyone. Especially businesses.
Hungry Joe
That’s all well and good (or maybe, disabled and good), but you have to admit that shitting on Ayn Rand or making the Koch brothers have a sad because they will have to spend an extra .000005% making their facilities accessible is kind of cool, too.
Linda Featheringill
Completely OT:
I now have power! I have heat! I have lights! I have internet!
Hooray!
[Sometimes it gets cold in Philly.]
Thank you. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
maximiliano furtive, formerly known as dr. bloor
@Hungry Joe: Not to mention shitting on the Koch brothers.
RareSanity
What the hell does the American Dental Association (ADA) have to do with your knee?
Sorry…I’ll show myself out.
FlyingToaster
I came to appreciate the curb cut-sidewalk ramps when I was strolling Warrior
BabyGirl around Watertown. The pain-in-the-ass corners without them (I have one on my corner, but the one opposite doesn’t) were no fun whatsoever, even in her urban assault stroller.Doing the right thing should be it’s own fucking reward. We shoveled our sidewalks (well, we shoveled, then one guy down the street snowblew them after the plows recovered them, then my neighbor snowblew them again after the plows came through again). There’s one patch I just saw at 6:30 that has melted and refrozen, so I’ll toss icemelt on it after 7am. Does it cost me to buy icemelt? Yep. Is it still the right thing to do? Yep; every immigrant, grad student, and schoolkid who walks down that sidewalk doesn’t die in the street in front of my house. I like that.
I also pay taxes, right here in Taxachusetts. And for them I get snowplows and cops and public schools that neighbor kids go to and firefighters and building inspectors and a public pool 10 minutes down the bike path and a city skating rink. And, when they repave the road, hopefully, sidewalk ramps on all the corners.
Villago Delenda Est
No, John, the real reason for all these laws IS to shit on Ayn Rand by denying that she, and she alone, is the center of the universe.
Eric S.
Sometime back I read a post, I think at Reality Based Community, about the advantages for non-disabled persons. The examples included parents with strollers and really anybody pushing a heavy wheeled cart. It was the right thing to do for the disabled and that’s more than reason enough. But it helps everyone in ways people never consider.
Ash Can
This is what too few people in this nation realize, thanks to the asswipe GOP, Fox Mouthpiece, and the rest of the hate-stokers.
srv
The very idea that the rest of us should cater to drunken lacrosse fratboy tank drivers who flip-flop party affliations and mop their roofs naked just makes me splenetic.
When do the rest of us have to stop accomodating your lifestyle choices?
taylormattd
A friend of mine, his partner is in a wheelchair. He says that after the ADA started being implemented, it was like a completely different existence for them.
jl
I remember when I was in Los Angeles, talking with some glibertarians at work,. They were sitting with their backs to the office window, and I was opposite them looking outside.
They were going on and on about how this ADA stuff was bunk, it was just corrupt Democratic graft for construction unions, and there weren’t any people with no disabilities having trouble getting around. Indeed, one could reason from first economic principles that people with disabilities could optimally figure out how to get around by themselves. These stupid projects for accessibility probably actually harmed them somehow, probably through higher taxes!
While we were talking, I saw a really old guy in a motorized wheel chair outside across the street. It had a little red flag on a pole sticking up from the rear of the chair. This guy was crossing the street but couldn’t get up on the sidewalk on the other side because it had a high curb. So,he was kind of scooting and jerking his wheelchair around, and seemed like he was a little panicky when a car went by him way too fast. Then a kindly passerby helped him get his wheelchair up on the curb.
I am sometimes a little slow on the uptake, so I should have said something sooner. But finally, I said “Hey there is a guy outside in a wheelchair having trouble right now across the street.” They thought I was joking, and a few seconds later the guy was out of sight on his way. But it didn’t make any difference because my glibertarian co-workers never believed me and never even bothered to turn around. They just kept yammering away.
That is, God be my witness, a true story.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Eric S.:
I appreciate wheelchair access cutouts everywhere I have to wheel my 40 lb suitcase and 70lb toolcase. Which is all over the place. At the Greenville SC airport today I had to haul it all up curbs because of construction. I dunno how that could have been legal even temporarily. The wheelchair ramp I usually use was barricaded.
OzarkHillbilly
Gee, and I thought the ADA was to keep union carpenters like me working! I think I spent 4-5 years doing nothing but ADA compliance upgrades on fast food stores. Glad that somebody other than the wheel chair bound appreciates them.
Turgidson
Speaking of the walking stick, I hope Lily doesn’t still freak out whenever she sees it?
jl
@OzarkHillbilly: I, being almost as clumsy as you-know-who, appreciate them. Less for me trip on.
Baud
Large bathroom stalls FTW!
geg6
Word, John Cole. That is exactly how I feel. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, all libertarians, and especially all objectivists are sociopaths. So they don’t give a shit about how these things make our society better. In fact, making society better is a huge negative in their eyes. And even when they suffer misfortune themselves, they still can’t see good from these types of societal improvements. Unless the improvements are aimed at them and only them. The world is a zero sum game to them. Sick fuckers.
the Conster
@jl:
The biggest advocates for the ADA were Diebold and NCR. They had saturated the ATM market already by the time the ADA was passed, and guess what banks all needed to replace if the ADA was passed.
srv
Geese flying southeast on the Pacific Flyway here are flying very low and as a group sound like “WTF, WTF, WTF” when they pass overhead.
Apparently they are unamused by the weather.
shelly
I have some mobility issues as well. Just an inch or so of snow makes things more difficult, but this winter is killing me.
Any folks in PA, I pray to FSM you got your power back. Had it out plenty of times during a summer heat wave. Can’t imagine trying to cope in the dead of winter.
OzarkHillbilly
@srv: Heh heh… heeheehee…. HawHAwHawHawhahahaahaahaaahaa….
MikeJ
I was working at a dumbfuck client’s site in NC once. At the entrance to the HQ building that the majority of employees used there was a sign directing you to the “ADA entrance”, which was a quarter mile away. I remember being unduly annoyed by the phrase “ADA entrance”. To me it said, “fuck you, we don’t care about allowing you in our building but the gubbmint forces us to” and I didn’t even need that entrance.
jl
@the Conster: Well, as long as it wasn’t them damn unions!
Roger Moore
@Eric S.:
There are lots of things that were changed for ADA compliance that turn out to be nice for able bodied people because they were ancient designs that were needlessly hard to use. There are occasionally times when ADA compliance is more expensive or intrusive than we’d prefer- wheelchair ramps seem like a very common example- but most of the changes are relatively minor and benefit everyone.
jl
@srv:
” The very idea that the rest of us should cater to drunken lacrosse fratboy tank drivers who flip-flop party affliations and mop their roofs naked just makes me splenetic. ”
Nothing about not clumsy or tubby, so that can’t be Cole. Must be one of those other drunken lacrosse fratboy tank drivers who flip-flop party affliations and mop their roofs naked interest groups (Edit: and THOSE leeches are sucking us dry!).
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Roger Moore:
Sturdy handrails. The ADA has a spec for stair handrails. Without the requirement there would be a lot more injuries of fully-abled people having minor stumbles. Also lighting, signage, doorway width, door handles, etc. All of it makes our lives a little easier and safer.
Roger Moore
@geg6:
There is no such thing as society, so there is no way to make “society” better. We are all just atomized individuals trying to maximize our personal utility.
max
@Roger Moore: There are lots of things that were changed for ADA compliance that turn out to be nice for able bodied people because they were ancient designs that were needlessly hard to use.
Exactly. And the dropcurbs are one of the best designs.
Pity we didn’t spend a bunch of money in 2010 to fix every old curb in the country.
max
[‘It was shovel-ready, but they were busy shoveling horseshit instead.’]
Culture of Truth
@RareSanity: 4 out 5 bloggers recommend your post
Pogonip
John, obtain some Yaktrax ice treads and you will never fear icy sidewalks again. They’re about $20 a pair and True Value carries them, and of course there’s mail order.
srv
@jl: There is a tubby-nazi clique who lord over us with their PC dictates and act like they own this site.
I don’t understand how a lacrosse player can be clumsy. Perhaps he should visit SCTV and do a sketch.
Sam
Also, anyone who has a kid in a stroller.
Villago Delenda Est
Totally OT, but Noisemax is at it again:
Pat Robertson Blasts Creationist: Don’t Make Us Joke
Sorry, Pat, it’s over a century too late, particularly for you, you disgrace to the Marine Corps you were once a part of.
ZotsTheBat
Yes. The crummy part, at least in Illinois, is that the companies (mostly) abide by the law. There is no inspection. If you’re an asshole and don’t put a ramp in your establishment, someone needs to file a complaint. Thankfully and happily, most businesses abide by the law. Source: My wife’s architecture/interior design business
Redshift
@Roger Moore: Plus we’re finding that accessible features like walk-in bathtubs, doors without sills, and door handles instead of knobs, which are being built into more new construction, are enabling people to stay in their homes longer as they get older.
Roger Moore
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I think a huge part of it is forcing designers to sit down and consider how things were going to be used. It seems to me that there are a lot of things in our society that were either never consciously designed or were designed so long ago that the technical considerations that went into their designs are far out of date. The ADA forced people to reconsider a lot of those designs, and it turned out that we were capable of doing better.
raven
@Redshift: I worked at what was called the “Center for Rehabilitation Technology” at GA Tech for a couple of years. It’s now called The Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access and they do great work in this area.
Villago Delenda Est
Er, over half a century in Pat’s case (he weaseled out of combat duty using his father’s influence during the Korean War).
jl
@srv:
” I don’t understand how a lacrosse player can be clumsy. ”
Maybe Cole was an enforcer. But then, with lacrosse, not sure how you could tell an enforcer from any other player. So, it remains a mystery.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Roger Moore:
This. Because many designers, handed a clean sheet of paper created designs that looked cool but were miserable for the people who had to live with them.
My brother rehabs very old buildings for a big university. They have to balance keeping the original look/feel of a historic building while complying with modern codes. It takes thought, creativity and planning but it works. The world does not end because you change a beloved structure so that the less mobile and partially sighted can enjoy it.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: James Brady discussed it.
Pat Robertson Redux
Fuzzy
Having been in a wheelchair for the last 5 years, let me tell you I used to plan my excursions and shopping around ramps. Now my town has ramps at all crossings and buildings. Deliverymen have been known to refuse to use steps due to back injuries when using a hand truck.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
This. I am still praise FSM, able bodied — but I will be 72 on my next birthday, and there’s no denying that I’m a little bit less steady on my pins than I was even a few years ago. When I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I have pretty much memorized which pieces of furniture I need to grab in order to stay steady. It is really a lurch from Point A to Point B to Point Pee, and back again to bed. Hand rails the entire way would be a boon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Well, it causes Rand Paul to get twitchy, which is of course an unexpected bonus.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
NOTHING pisses me off more than someone holding a commission weaseling out of combat duty.
Helen
Similar to what John said. I live in NYC. NYC has, are you ready? 12,750 miles of sidewalks. At the end of every corner (12,750 X 4???) , the sidewalk dips down to street level. That was not true before the ADA was passed. NYC changed every single corner to be compliant. I do not know what the hell it cost. But I can probably assume that those whom it benefits (the disabled and the elderly) do not pay even close to the amount of taxes that it cost to do that. And that’s OK.
Villago Delenda Est
@Helen:
The funds should come out of the hide of the vile parasitic pustule named Jaime Dimon.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: Especially a jar head.
Anoniminous
Herself is 90% functional now but for years she was semi-confined to a wheelchair as anything beyond a 100 feet was simply too much for her to walk. It’s impossible to describe the accumulation of petty annoyances due to bad or thoughtless design creating a major PITA to get her to where she needed to go sometimes.
Every architect,
inferiorinterior designer, civil engineer, and etc. should be forced to spend 3 months in a wheel chair before being able to legally inflict their “expertise” on the Public Space.Roger Moore
@Helen:
I think that one of the points of the discussion is that those may be the people it was intended to benefit, but they aren’t by any means the only ones who do in practice. They help people who are disabled temporarily or who are pushing anything on wheels (shopping cart, suitcase, stroller, etc.), which includes practically everyone at one time or another. And the real cost may have been less than you’d think because those curbs and sidewalks were going to need replacement as part of routine maintenance even without the ADA.
Helen
@Villago Delenda Est: Read a fantastic article (h/t Charles pierce at Esquire) that said that Ireland is actually going to indict the fucking bankers. I posted it to my FB page with the comment “Too bad Jamie Dimon is not Irish”
dollared
I’ve been too busy to see every post. So, what’s the diagnosis on JC’s knee? Time for a transplant?
mclaren
Ever consider wearing cleated shoes, Cole?
Not to belittle your point about the ACA, sure, we need health care reform. But one guy like you is probably burning through the medical resources required to save the lives of about 300 homeless people. Cleated snow shoes in the winter would eliminate that problem.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@dollared:
It’s just withholding its productivity out of spite.
fidelio
A friend of mine likes to point out, when she finds herself in discussions about the pros and cons of accessibility arrangements, that we need to remember we are all temporarily able-bodied at best.
She says there have been a lot of odd expressions and long silences when people stop the think about that.
raven
@fidelio: TAB’s.
Helen
@Roger Moore: Yeah but the law got passed as the ADA. YAY that it helps others. But that was not why it was passed and funded.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
If you’re not doing it already, you should take up tai chi — science says so! ;-)
SiubhanDuinne
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
I iz in your patellah, witholdin mah productiviteh!
Anoniminous
@Villago Delenda Est:
On the other hand, think of the hundreds of lives saved due to the lack of officers forcing senior NCOs to take over leading infantry platoons rather than 2nd Loonies. er … “Lieutenants” :-p
Seriously, company officers operate at where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. If I had to go into combat (shudder) I’d rather have the weasels well to the rear where their freezing or mistakes won’t directly and immediately kill me or members of my squad.
Villago Delenda Est
@fidelio:
She’s talking to the wrong people, then, the ones who still have working synapses.
Hang out with some teatards in Hoverounds, who don’t get it even though they’re in a Hoveround.,
Mnemosyne
@Helen:
I think Roger’s point is that, when people whine about the ADA, we need to point out that it benefits everyone, not just the disabled, and it benefits them right now, not just when they are elderly and less steady on their feet.
Sure, it’s a side benefit, but I don’t see any reason not to point out the side benefits of an already great law.
SiubhanDuinne
O/T: Watching the March of Nations, Opening Ceremonies, and I cannot make any sense of the order. It doesn’t seem to be alphabetical in the least, whether you use English transliterations or native orthography.
dollared
@SiubhanDuinne: You guys are funny. Can you put his orthopedist on the line?
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks! I have considered that, and your reminder is helpful. Much appreciated!
raven
@SiubhanDuinne:
Cyrillic Alphabet.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
They say it’s alphabetical in cyrillic.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
@Baud:
Thanks. I was in a bar and the sound was muted and no closed captioning. I finally came to that explanation in my own head.
WereBear
@Pogonip: I live in those every winter. Why not? Why doesn’t everyone?
The thing about ice, is, you don’t just fall down. You get thrown down.
RSA
@Eric S.:
Yes. The concept is called universal design:
How many people buy OXO kitchen products? That company was created by the founder of Farberware, who observed his wife having trouble using a vegetable peeler. Unsurprisingly, most of us also like using non-painful kitchen tools. We sometimes also appreciate walking through extra-wide turnstiles that accommodate wheelchairs as well as an armful of groceries. The rubberized surfaces at strategic locations on some sidewalks warn blind people with canes that they should pay attention to an upcoming roadway, and they’re non-skid for the rest of us.
And if you ever hear someone ridiculing the idea of a drive-through bank machine with Braille on the key pad, you can point out the reduced manufacturing cost of standardization on a single interface rather than one for people with vision impairment and one for everyone else.
It’s a pretty cool approach to design.
jl
@RSA: Thanks for the information.
The only problem is that the excessive equity and goodwill implicit in the idea might bother people in certain quarters. But, who cares?
RSA
@jl:
I know! “Special treatment” for people with disabilities. I’m reminded of Chris Rock’s line: “… And I’m rich!”
burnspbesq
@jl:
There’s a position that was specifically created for
enforcerssociopaths. It’s called long-stick midfielder.rikyrah
@Baud:
Don’t knock the large bathroom stalls…they are wonderful.
burnspbesq
@SiubhanDuinne:
Cyrillic alphabet order?
burnspbesq
@burnspbesq:
ETA: And yes, if I had played in the 1990s instead of the 1970s, you can bet your ass I would have been an LSM.
Suzanne
I am (almost) an architect, and I have to kind of put the smack down on my clients, because they hate all the accessibility stuff. I must say that it really is considerably more expensive than you might think….the Feds suggest that 20% of any renovation budget be devoted to accessibility. And full accessibility is just plain impossible in some buildings without knocking them down and starting over.
But it’s great. And the 2010 ADA design guide is the result of years and years of exhaustive research and really does a great job for people who have many varieties of disabilities….wheelchairs, mobility, bending, visual, auditory, distance/stamina, etc.
Pogonip
@WereBear: You got that right. A 5th-Dan teacher in my old MA school slipped on ice and broke his wrist. He went down so fast and so hard that even he couldn’t control it.
Yaktrax for everyone!
Honus
Merely by accommodating disabled people you are shitting on Ayn Rand.
Honus
@srv: He was a WVU lacrosse player, not a UVA lacrosse player, that’s why.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
Yeah, that part’s just the schadenfreudey gravy that sometimes comes with doing good.
.
Omnes Omnibus
I used to run the accessibility compliance program for a government agency. When local officials in townships that had 53 people would note that they did not have any of “those people,” I would remind them that, here in Wisconsin, anyone is just a slip on the ice or a softball injury from being at least temporarily disabled. I would then follow up by noting that I had been a college athlete and had been on crutches twice before I was 22 years old. That being said, the vast majority of local officials with whom I dealt were aware of the accessibility issues and really interested in fixing problems.
Ian
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
Its going viral. We have to put it down before it lays eggs.
Cckids
I know this is very late, but the ADA is great in so many ways. I’ve been taking my son, in his wheelchair, around for 30+ years, now. I remember taking him to the movies and having to get an employee to find a folding chair, so I could sit by him at the back of the theater, usually right by a garbage can . Now we can sit together, sometimes even with the rest of the family, in a normal theater seat. There is seating at restaurants & parks, we don’t always feel completely alien. There’s a place we can be. It makes a difference.
Gretchen
I appreciated the law when I had infant twins and couldn’t go anywhere a double stroller couldn’t go. When I had to pick up a sick kid from school I had to wave up to the principal’s office to send her down because they were on the second old with no elevator.
Matt McIrvin
One of the things that makes picking on the ADA so dumb is that most of us are going to be mobility-impaired and/or visually-impaired in some way eventually.
Matt McIrvin
…and I’ve used those curb cuts often myself when I’m dragging a rolling suitcase around.
David in NY
Yup, I wrenched (still hoping didn’t tear) a knee around Christmas and have been hobbling ever since (getting slowly better). And it has been real handy to have elevators in the subway, curb cuts for pedestrians, nice wide toilets, etc. And if this were permanent (which God willing it is not), I would be umpty times more grateful.
LanceThruster
Late to the dance but thought I’d add this. Had a grade school chum who inherited his dad’s gear manufacturing business. He’s solid right wing and supported Bush’s wars. I remember him complaining that the number of workers he had meant he was required to put handicap accessible ramps and restrooms (even though) nobody handicapped comes to his place of business. I said with the human toll from the wars, that might change. He had many DoD contracts and it wasn’t that inconceivable that a wounded vet might be involved in sales or production somehow.
He hasn’t talked to me in a long while since then.