[tallblondeguy]

Empathy is a big way to raise awareness.

When I had kids and started walking them around in a stroller, you learn really quickly where the sidewalks with ramps are, and you (and your toddler who likes to help!) come to appreciate the buttons that open doors automatically.

I run as well, and it's not fun to trip on uneven sidewalks. Sometimes at night I'd rather run on the road where I can count on a more even surface and no branches hitting me in the face. I think I'm more inclined to shovel my sidewalk in the winter because I don't like running on compressed snow that melted in the sun and refroze overnight.

So...yeah! Fix this stuff for disabled people, and other people get to benefit. Sidewalks are for everyone.

[vog]

This is so true.

That's why here in Germany we have a separate term for that: "barrierefrei", which means "free of barriers". It is the politically correct variant of the other popular word "behindertengerecht" which merely means "suitable for disabled people".

Many people here think that "barrierefrei" is just about political correctness for its own sake. But the term "barrierefrei" emphases a completely different way of thinking about this issue: It is about removing barriers for everyone, with disabled people being the most important target group, but by far not the only one.

[csours]

Empathy is a much better approach than political correctness, in my opinion.

Political correctness tends to shut down discussions, empathy extends them.

PC is prescriptive, empathy is descriptive.

[vog]

I see PC as a way to spread and to communicate empathy: Using words and phrases that don't paint a false picture of reality (and don't trigger prejudices) is IMHO a good start to get to talk with people more openly.

Of course, PC only works if you are doing it on your own, not if you impose it on the people you are trying to convince.

[ticviking]

The flaw in the politically correct approach is often that it fails to empathize with those who don't yet empathize. And often resorts to shaming when it is unable to create the empathy needed to create action.

[klodolph]

That's not really a criticism of political correctness, that's a criticism of one of the ways political correctness can be enforced.

But it's a bit weird to equate empathy for a condition beyond one's control with empathy for people who don't choose to use empathetic language.

I've been in a few classes or workshops where the instructors have taught people how to correct insensitive speech. It's something that can be done well.

[vog]

I hope I did so in my first comment (criticism are welcome in case I failed): I introduced the term "barrierefrei" and explained why I prefer that term over the other popular alternative.

[nugator]

Can you please give some examples on how to correct insensitive speech well?

[mcguire]

I am unsure if 'political correctness' was ever used non-ironically. It certainly hasn't been so for a very long time. Usually it is used as an attack.

Personally I translate it to 'good manners'.

[maxerickson]

Yes, it seems the most common use of "politically correct" is by people who are mad that others expect them to ponder how others might react to their words. The horror.

I suppose there is some chance that they are being slightly more sophisticated and making the argument that the expectations are strictly performative. But I doubt it.

[namelost]

The classic example of political correctness is the term "happy holidays" instead of "merry christmas".

The use of political correct terms makes people mad because it contains within it an implication that they are being rude, and often the person coming up with these euphemisms has not the faintest idea whether the existing term was offensive or not!

[mcguire]

"The classic example of political correctness is the term "happy holidays" instead of "merry christmas"."

That's probably true, given that "happy holidays" predates "political correctness" by more than a few decades.

[maxerickson]

Are there any real people that care about "Merry Christmas", or is "Happy Holidays" just milquetoast corporate speak chosen out of a preference for blandness?

[vog]

I guess my usage of PC is then to be interpreted double-ironically:

I know that the term "barrierefrei" is PC, and I know that quite a lot of people will hate it for that reason alone. I use it nevertheless, because I think that PC terminology is actually a good thing (to be used, not to be enforced), and that "barrierefrei" is an especially well-chosen term.

[s73ver_]

PC is empathy. It's having empathy for those in other situations.

[majormajor]

PC-ness tells you nothing about the idea itself, but solely things about how the person responding to it sees it.

The most "anti-PC" people in the US have their own jargon and codewords and "safe spaces" with all the same restrictions, just turned on their heads. For instance, there are very few places you could go where people would tell you to your face that black lives don't matter, but a much larger set of places where it wouldn't be "PC" to wear a Black Lives Matter shirt.

[okreallywtf]

Except when people lack empathy, they call it political correctness. My problem is I have not found a good way to teach empathy to someone who is lacking it, repeating someone elses story doesn't work and its hard to get other people sometimes to actively experience the same things that I have (even if its just listening to a story on the radio).

[Chris_Jay]

In children, reading fiction is supposed to be one thing that helps empathy.

There's also something called 'decompression therapy' that supposedly helped youths with psychopathy become less psychopathic.

The theory as I understand it goes like this: Everyone has a 'sphere of empathy', they empathize with those inside it but not outside. To a psychopath that boundary is their own skin, to a vegetarian it includes all animals, to a pescatarian all land animals... you get the idea. What makes people's sphere of empathy expand is feeling safe and empathized with, it allows them to risk the vulnerability of empathizing with someone who might betray them. But it's like voluntarily relaxing a muscle - the process is slow, and while the right pressure can help the problem point relax, too much pressure will make it tense up more.

[Nomentatus]

When I was young, a long time ago, the term "politically correct" wasn't in use, except as the recorded reason Stalin gave when he sent people to be executed or imprisoned, namely that they were "politically incorrect." So I'm dubious about equating PC and empathy.

[ticviking]

PC was created as a label to accuse the opposition of the same kind of intent.

[sverige]

My recollection is that the first instances where I saw the term "politically correct" widely used, it was unironic and self-applied, in singles ads. This was in Seattle in the late 80s.

[vacri]

Seriously? The concept of treating people fairly is Stalinist?

[PeterisP]

The issue with PC-culture is that it goes way, way beyond treating people fairly - I've never seen the ironic usage of political correctness applied to situation where it just required people to simply be treated fairly, the term is used when there's something ridiculous done to protect the appearance of treating people fairly or to prevent the risk that someone might get offended because of some interpretation (which has nothing to do with treating them fairly).

e.g. ESPN pulling veteran announcer Robert Lee off a University of Virginia football game because his name is too close to Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general is an example of political correctness in action, and that has nothing to do with treating people fairly (certainly the announcer wasn't treated fairly in this through no fault of his own), but to prevent the risk that someone might get offended;

Censoring Huckleberry Finn (for having the n-word in it, despite being a great anti-racist novel of the time) done at some institutions was another example of political correctness - again, there's nothing in the act about treating people fairly, it's simply a fight against "taboo" words or thought, and that is pretty Stalinist in some aspects.

[s73ver_]

Given the things that people complain about under the guise of complaining about "PC Culture", yes, to them it probably is.

[Chris_Jay]

There seem to be two different phenomena that are both called PC - they might be glibly described as preoccupied with victims and preoccupied with persecutors. If you're not a member of a group associated with victimhood, it's a good bet you've only ever interacted with the latter, but the former are actually motivated primarily by empathy.

[s73ver_]

I'm quite dubious about equating the modern sense of "politically correct" with that.

[Nomentatus]

The next time I heard it was in the early eighties in a Marxist commune, so I'm not.

[mstade]

> Fix this stuff for disabled people, and other people get to benefit. Sidewalks are for everyone.

This is something that bears repeating. Accessibility means making things accessible for everyone, not just people with disabilities. It's much easier to push a heavy dolly up a ramp, than it is to pull it up lips, steps, etc. Self opening doors are a god send when carrying packages.

[CydeWeys]

I cannot agree with this more. I'm an able-bodied man who exercises at least five days a week. I definitely don't need any of this stuff, right? I have no problems stepping up curbs, taking even many flights of stairs, etc.

Until I broke my ankle in a bicycle accident last year. Then I became acutely aware of how poor some of the infrastructure is around me. The closest subway station to me doesn't have an elevator, for example, and the one nearest work only has a single elevator at one end of the platform that is often out of service. I supported accessibility standards in theory before this, but now that I've seen how they play out in practice, I strongly and emphatically support them. Empathy is hugely important.

I am also so goddamn thankful that there is the requirement to have sturdy handrails alongside all flights of stairs, and that this requirement is strictly enforced (thank the ADA or building codes or whatever is responsible). With these handrails, an otherwise able-bodied person on crutches can handle staircases relatively easily. Without them, stairs are death traps, especially going down. I would have been mostly confined to my apartment without the existence of these handrails. Fortunately, they exist everywhere, so I was able to tackle the stairs at my apartment, at the subway station, at work, and in the entrances to buses.

[pavel_lishin]

I became very aware of which subway stops have elevators after my elderly father came to visit us, and had to walk down the two long flights of stairs to the subway platform. (Luckily, there's one - one! - escalator that goes to the main mezzanine from the lower level, but if you're on the middle level, it's the staircase for you again.)

Another "temporary disability" that most people don't think of is carrying a baby. Suddenly, doors that can be operated one-handed (or even better, hands-free) are wonderful when you're trying to get your kid someplace where you can change that blow-out.

[CydeWeys]

Yeah, the stations I was mentioning don't have escalators either. Few in NYC do. Contrast with the DC Metro system, which is much more recent and has escalators in almost all stations. Still not good for wheelchair users, but much better for people on crutches.

[pavel_lishin]

We used to live at Parkside in Brooklyn, and one night my wife and I carried a guy in a wheelchair up the stairs.

He had no idea how to check which stations were handicap-accessible and which weren't, and when we showed him, it turns out he would have to go halfway further into Brooklyn, then get on a bus just to undo the journey above-ground. At something like 1 or 2am, too.

He just sort of deflated when he realized the journey ahead of him, so we just offered to lug him up the stairs, and did. Good thing he wasn't there alone.

[TheCoelacanth]

The DC metro has elevator access throughout the whole system as well. Judging by the frequent announcements I hear, there is almost always at least one or two elevators out, but they operate shuttles to take people with wheelchairs to the nearest station with working elevators when there is a outage.

[vacri]

> Empathy is hugely important. [story of own problems]

It's not 'empathy' if you don't notice it until it affects you personally, or you're only doing something because it might affect you in the future.

[icebraining]

It's not 'empathy' if you don't notice it until it affects you personally

Being affected personally at one time can (and, I assume, often does) help one develop empathy, though.

[Symmetry]

And it will also mean accessible for robots before too long.

[acdha]

I really liked Microsoft’s inclusive UI work for emphasizing this:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/design/inclusive

Maybe you’re normally fully abled but you benefit when you’re a new parent carrying a child, sprain an ankle, etc.

The framing of short/mid/long-term is really nice for breaking the self/other empathy gap.

[alexanderstears]

Empathy is a big way to raise awareness.

No kidding. I'm a large person with a weightlifting hobby - so about as able bodied as a person can get - but after a frustrating experience of moving into a very poorly designed apartment building, I've started seeking out impediment-free spaces.

There's just so much unnecessary bologna, pointless stairs, poorly placed ramps, etc. are all functionally the equivalent of traffic and poorly timed traffic lights: they're taxes we pay with time and frustration because some designer made poor decisions.

If we're collectively paying for something, we're the boss and we have the gold so we make the rules. That means open source code, functional designs, and comprehensive cost-effective management.

[rmc]

It's important to remember that you're only temporarily able bodied.

Sure you're able bodied today. But if you're lucky enough to live to an old age, your body won't be what it was. And you could be hit by a car tomorrow and paralyzed.

[dmurray]

This is such a classic example that the phenomenon of features designed for disabled people being useful for non-disabled people (for example, closed captions on TV) has 's name: the curb cut effect.

[Spooky23]

Funny thing is that in the suburban town adjacent to my city, the GOP platform for town supervisor (like a mayor) includes “fighting back” against mandatory sidewalks.

[alexanderstears]

I don't know that town's situation but I don't think we should be reflexively against it.

It might be appropriate for them and the community. We don't need sidewalks connecting farms, and maybe if the neighborhood wasn't built with walkability / accessiblity in mind, people who need walkability / accessiblity don't live there and it'd be burdensome and wasteful to make it more accessible than anyone demands it to be.

[Spivak]

It doesn't seem that unreasonable -- people don't like to be told what to do and a small town might have more pressing issues than sidewalks which, if we're being honest about typical suburbia, that almost no one uses. I think even the staunchest conservatives would argue that a robust network of sidewalks would be nice to have -- I think the issue is making it mandatory.

I think it's weird to make sidewalks your hill to die on but without context it seems like it could be a reasonable policy decision.

[Spooky23]

It's an inner suburb where the population center is like a lower density urban neighborhood.

IMO, it's a way to fight the in-demand construction for today, which is medium density apartments, and more kids looking for access to the schools.

[jtuente]

From another direction, how does "mandatory sidewalks" make medium density apartments more viable in that locale? Is it by putting the onus/cost on the city/taxes to develop the sidewalks, thereby acting as a subsidy for the apartment developer?

[Spooky23]

I don't follow this terribly closely, as its not my town. My understanding is that there's an overall focus on walkable infrastructure that is accessible to services and transit on foot. Some folks are unhappy with that.

There's a lot of dynamics at play. People who own property don't like the mandates because they potentially impact the value of the subdivided value (the builder makes the sidewalks, the municipality maintains them), many people don't want more people & school enrollment because that drives taxes, and old people are afraid of people who ride the bus for various reasons.

[s73ver_]

It doesn't seem that unreasonable... until you're in a situation like the people in the story.

[LanceH]

And their position isn't unreasonable until you're billed $10k for sidewalk repair.

[s73ver_]

Most of us are arguing that it should be the city's responsibility to take care of the sidewalks, but beyond that, I don't see it any different than maintaining any other part of your house.

[LanceH]

I was agreeing -- just adding that some people are getting slammed with bills for a mandate that was put in place after they purchased their property.

[knodi123]

small government and self-reliance are pretty standard republican platform item. criticize that if you like - I know I sure do - but it's hardly inconsistent or surprising.

[acdha]

Cutting public infrastructure like sidewalks prevents self-reliance — it’s saying that anyone who isn’t able-bodied and affluent enough to afford a car doesn’t belong in the community. If, instead, you provide things like accessibility, public transit, etc. millions of people can actually contribute to society rather than being dependent on charity.

[TYPE_FASTER]

> When I had kids and started walking them around in a stroller, you learn really quickly where the sidewalks with ramps are

Yes. The first time we took our daughter on a subway trip in the city, and had to take many escalators to get from street to platform, back to street, was a real eye opener.

[jbob2000]

Mother nature does not want sidewalks to exist. A smooth, even surface is not something that exists naturally, it requires us to constantly evaluate, design, and repair. You can fix a sidewalk one year, then winter happens and the ground up-heaves and shifts the concrete, and it'll be another 5 years before you can circle back to do maintenance. Or someone plants a tree in their yard and over time the roots grow under the pavement. And as you already identified, you can't depend on people to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property.

We will never have perfect sidewalks, it's a noble goal, but it's pie-in-the-sky thinking to want perfect sidewalks. Instead, we should be building better accessibility devices, ones that can navigate tough terrain. Why are the wheels on mobility devices so damn small? Can they be made to be swappable so you can put on the outdoor wheels when you're travelling, and indoor ones when you want something smooth and quiet?

[tallblondeguy]

> We will never have perfect sidewalks, it's a noble goal, but it's pie-in-the-sky thinking to want perfect sidewalks.

We'll never have perfect anything. But I think you're being more than a bit defeatist here. I'm in the US Northeast and the sidewalk in my house was installed in 2008. Still basically flawless today. As homeowners, we accept that we need a new roof every 25 years because the consequences are real and tangible to us. I have to think that sidewalks are just part of the cost of living in a walkable community, even if we don't walk that much.

A few communities down, they require sidewalk maintenance for residents if the pavers are uneven at all. It's a very affluent borough, but you'll see people grind down the edges of the sidewalk that stick up in order to meet the code. So you can maintain without replacing.

And besides, we don't have this logic for roads. I mean, SUVs can handle anything, so why bother with all of this even pavement with good drainage?

>Instead, we should be building better accessibility devices, ones that can navigate tough terrain.

You're being downvoted for the first paragraph, but I think your second paragraph is sensible. My running stroller is way better at handling broken sidewalks than the scissor stroller with tiny wheels that fits great in a small trunk and works well at the mall. Strollers aren't super expensive (at least not $30k like that wheelchair) so I can have more than one and use the best one for my situation.

We see concept robots that can handle rough terrain. Wouldn't it be great if that got integrated into wheelchairs somehow?

[jbob2000]

>It's a very affluent borough, but you'll see people grind down the edges of the sidewalk that stick up in order to meet the code. So you can maintain without replacing.

That's kind of why I'm being defeatist. You just need a ton of money to keep sidewalks in good order. And you need the people that live in the area to care enough to report the issues.

>You're being downvoted for the first paragraph, but I think your second paragraph is sensible.

Yeah, I was really trying to setup the second paragraph to be impactful, but I don't think people got that far.

[asfdsaf]

"You just need a ton of money to keep sidewalks in good order. "

No, you don't. You just need to make them properly the first time and keep people from planting trees where they don't belong.

In my parents house in Canuckistan, I've never seen them fix the side-walks in 20 years and they're mostly fine.

[logfromblammo]

Damage to rigid pavements occurs more often in climate zones that experience multiple freeze-thaw cycles at the ground surface during a single winter. Many of the populated places in Canada freeze one or two times at the onset of winter, then stay frozen until the thaw, with maybe one more freeze after that.

Southeast Ontario, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, etc. will re-freeze near the surface dozens of times every winter, and each time, more pavement damage is possible. Halite and other ice-melting chemicals can exacerbate the problem by making the ice in or under different parts of the pavement freeze at different temperatures.

You don't even need to do it properly the first time. You can seal pavements (and the underlying soil) against moisture infiltration at any time. Dropping a layer of asphalt on top is a common way to do this after the initial construction. Many places in the US simply do not bother, because that would cost a lot more up front, and then there would be fewer maintenance contracts to hand out. There's always the possibility that no one will ever complain, and the problem can be ignored forever--that's money that never needs to be budgeted.

If you build a proper foundation for a sidewalk, and then seal it against moisture, it will stay smooth and level for hundreds of freeze-thaw cycles, barring some natural disaster that would let the water underneath it. But if you're only mayor for two years, and the sidewalks last 30, nobody is going to come back to you 20 years after you leave office and pat you on the back for your wise sidewalk decisions. It is more likely that there will be some crisis right before the election and the money that could have solved it already went into great sidewalks. Or even worse, if you're a subdivision developer, you're out of there a year after the last lot gets sold, long before anyone notices how many corners you cut on the sidewalks.

All of this comes back to the prevailing attitudes in the US about who should be responsible for community infrastructure. We often expect private entities to build it, and public entities to maintain it. This screws up all the incentives. The reality is that subdivision developers probably should not exist. The municipality should be performing that function, instead of annexing every ad-hoc, ex-farmland housing development that springs up on the borders. That's how you get straight streets that connect at both ends, and good sidewalks that go everywhere that cars can. And then you can fire the zoning board, because when you build all the streets, you can control all the lot sizes and business parking requirements directly.

[oneplane]

Not sure why it all has to be paved, using tiles or bricks works fine here.

We do have some problems with ZOAB-based paved roads if the freeze/thaw cycles are too high, but any big problems are repaired in two or three days, and all roads are maintained and replaced relatively quickly anyway, so it's not a big deal.

It's strange to see the broken roads and patchwork in the US. Every time I visit I wonder why there is no majority that agrees on fixing it. Short term "it works now" is such a bad idea...

[jbob2000]

> You just need to make them properly the first time and keep people from...

Surely you see the comedy in that statement? I don't think anything happens right the first time. And preventing people from doing anything is pretty tough as well!

[pavel_lishin]

More defeatism.

How is equipping everyone with expensive wheelchairs a better solution than enforcing a standardized construction code?

And how do wheels help someone when they're trying to jog on a sidewalk?

[dwaltrip]

> I don't think anything happens right the first time.

This is irrationally pessimistic.

Nothing is perfect, but there is a huge, meaningful difference between slightly flawed and completely flawed. It doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough.

Many things _can_ be done decently well the first time. Often times it just takes a small cultural mindset shift, and some minor improvements to the approach.

[CydeWeys]

Did you read the entire article? The main problems the woman are having are with lack of curb cuts, lack of sidewalks, and obstructions in the sidewalk, even on new construction. This has nothing to do with "nature wearing things down" and everything to do with them simply not being built correctly.

Some of the mentioned sidewalks are one hundred years old, and are thoroughly decayed as a result. I bet if every road you had to drive on was in that condition then you'd be upset about it and would demand repairs, rather than just throwing up your hands at the inevitability of entropy. Maybe you want to go live out in primitive conditions in the jungle somewhere, but the rest of us want civilization. Your logic applies equally to roads as it does to sidewalks, so should we just give up on them as well?

[jbob2000]

> Your logic applies equally to roads as it does to sidewalks, so should we just give up on them as well?

No, but I wouldn't drive a low-riding sports car if I lived in an area with crappy roads. I'd buy a pickup truck with good suspension and large knobby tires.

The problem is that accessibility devices don't have the option of "good suspension and large knobby tires".

Every problem that woman experiences is because her wheelchair is not built for the environment she operates in. We need better wheelchairs. Yelling at local state government to fix sidewalks will not work. There are millions of miles of sidewalks to fix and hundreds of thousands of people responsible for them. You can't change that quickly. But you can build a better wheelchair.

[CydeWeys]

> There are millions of miles of sidewalks to fix and hundreds of thousands of people responsible for them.

Again, I don't think you read the article. The sidewalks are in the best condition in cities like Boston, where they are the responsibility of the city. Cities are already responsible for constructing and maintaining roads; is it really so crazy that they do the same for the sidewalks that are built adjacent to roads? In what way does it make sense having hundreds of thousands of individual owners of patches of sidewalk 20 m long? You're throwing away all economies of scale there.

Good sidewalks benefit everyone. I've almost injured myself from tripping over a particularly uneven patch of sidewalk, and many people have actually injured themselves. The elderly and the blind who walk won't benefit from better wheelchairs, but they certainly will benefit from better, flatter sidewalks. Everyone benefits.

[arprocter]

The brick sidewalks in Boston are notoriously uneven - very easy to trip if you aren't paying attention

[volkl48]

Most sidewalks in Boston are normal concrete, not brick. I've only seen the brick in some of the historic sections.

[maxerickson]

The good wheelchair was too expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBOT

[asfdsaf]

And there are hundreds of thousands of un(der)employed decaying middle class men.

Who used to fix sidewalks among other things.

[sulam]

These are new (enough) sidewalks in an area that is highly developed.

[asfdsaf]

I read your comment to see why you were down voted. The first paragraph is fine. Although, as an Italian, I beg to differ. The Romans were quite capable of building roads that are walkable 2000 years later. Not all. But it is 2000 years.

Then I read the second one. Wow. You've internalized the "have bad infrastructure and get an SUV" mentality. We're not paving the world. We're paving a small part of our environment where people live. Yes strollers have stupid wheels. But having good infrastructure in a small area means I don't need a techno-distopian robot walking me everywhere.

[tallblondeguy]

Interesting that we reacted to his comment so differently.

There aren't always perfect solutions to problems. Sometimes futurologists are found waiting for the perfect, inexhaustible source of energy to power the world, but the practical consensus is that our renewable world be a mix of solar, wind, hydro, and some sort of more-advanced atom-splitting. Find multiple angles to chip away at the problem until you get where you want to go.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say "let's try to get all sidewalk cracks under an inch" and then say "let's get wheelchairs that can handle an inch-high crack", as an arbitrary example.

I mean, if we want to talk about unintended benefits - my most mobile stroller was purchased as a running stroller to be used on a rail-to-trail, then I found out it could handle bad sidewalks pretty well. Isn't that the same argument as my top-level post, just from the opposite side?

[klibertp]

> Mother nature does not want sidewalks to exist. A smooth, even surface is not something that exists naturally,

How is that different from roads?

> you can't depend on people to maintain the sidewalks in front of their property

"in front of their property" is one way of looking at this; "alongside a road" is another.

[CydeWeys]

Even more so, why do we expect the state to pay for roads, which are only for drivers, but not to pay for sidewalks, which are for everyone? Sidewalks are just roads for people who aren't driving cars at the moment.

Logically, if the state were going to cover the costs of one of them, it'd be sidewalks, since they can be used by all taxpayers. You could have road users pay tolls to pay for the roads, and people who don't drive could simply opt out.

[noonespecial]

Mother nature also seems to want lots of us to die from smallpox and polio. Sometimes(1) you've just got to tell Mother Nature to take a hike and human it up.

(1) Not always and usually in moderation, but definitely sometimes.

[oneplane]

You can have it, but only if your country is built on the idea of making sure that shared systems (like infrastructure) is maintained and checked, always and forever, and no corners are cut because someone wants to get rich quick.

In our country, our roads, bike roads and sidewalks all have to adhere to the same base set of rules, everywhere. They all have to be there, be maintained and it's not optional. If you have a sidewalk in front of your house and you want to clean/maintain/service it, that's great, but the country will check it, clean it, maintain it. We have sidewalk-streetcleaners about once a month, driving to every sidewalk and if any structural damage or loss of markings is seen, it's noted and fixed during the next maintenance round.

Regarding ramps (as outlined in the article), there is a guarantee that you will always have a clear path between two points, with no hard barriers. So no fences in the wrong place, ramps always facing ramps on the other side of the street, all with the same inclination. No hard edges, everything is rounded off ever so slightly (reduces wear/tripping/hooking dirt), and it's against the law to block any of it.

[lizzard]

What fabulous country is this? I have never experienced the easy sidewalks you describe except in particular parts of some major cities.

[maxerickson]

Properly installed concrete doesn't heave from frost.

Trees are certainly an issue.

[greedo]

Properly installed concrete or properly installed sidewalks? Unless you're pouring footings below the frost line, a slab sidewalk will heave in freezing climates.

[sulam]

"Mother nature" also wants you dead and your component atoms spread across the planet. Are you going to get with the program or keep going for as long as you can?

[jbob2000]

Whew, never thought a comment about wanting better wheelchairs would attract so much vitrol. You want me dead because I posted a thought about sidewalks and wheelchairs on a message board?

[sulam]

I don't want you dead. I don't know you and on general principle would like you to lead a very long life. Mother nature, though, she's after your hide!

[jbob2000]

Haha, touché!

[vacri]

Other things that don't exist in nature: cars, houses, clothes, cooked food...