A set of eye-shaped barriers now mark the path to warn bikers of the staircase ahead where Vivace general manager Brian Fairbrother suffered fatal injuries in a crash last September, Seattle Bike Blog reports:
The sidewalk is designated as a multi-use trail, yet there were no signs directing people on bikes to ride across the bridge rather than continue forward.
Though we may never know for sure if this was the cause of the wreck, the city took action to address the issue. Shortly after the crash, the city installed a sign warning about the staircase ahead.
The 50-year-old Fairbrother worked at Vivace for more than 20 years and was well-known in the Capitol Hill community after years of pulling espresso shots on Broadway.
I do believe the blind would have a problem navigating around these also. Cane hits post in ground on one side, moves to get around object to walk into something sticking out. Need something a cane can hit below eye to help navigate.
Below the eye?
Having friends who are blind and use canes, i’m inclined to agree. They’ll find the stanchion sticking out of the group, but will probably walk right into the Eye part. Probably wont be a big deal, but still funny how alot of cyclists complain about how the city didnt have cyclists in mind when they designed certain streets, when clearly nobody thought about the blind when they put up this warning.
Clearly nobody thought about with this design.
Excellent point!
Having worked with the visually impaired community for several years in my career (I’m actually a fully sighted person), I completely agree that this is a trap for them.
CHS, would you be able to elevate this issue to the City? If not then send me the details on the location of this “trap” and I’ll take an effort to do it (you have my email address behind this post).
One more comment to all: please don’t use term “blind”. That’s not the most respectful way to address this community. Also, considering the variety of sight impairments, this particular place could become an obstacle to a wider part of visually impaired community than just fully impaired.
Not everyone agrees with you about the word, “blind”, including the National Federation for the Blind and Lighthouse for the Blind.
http://www.nfb.org/Images/nfb/Publications/bm/bm09/bm0901/bm
Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board are you reading about the problems with this new, well-intentioned but not well-designed piece of metal?
While I understand the complaints about the lack of thought for visually-impaired people, as someone who was close to Brian, it does feel good to have something done. He was very important to a lot of people and when someone does actually die because of poor design, it’s nice to feel like his death, and the response by the city, will save future lives, pain and hardship.
And that’s OK. Perhaps it’s a matter of a certain subset of this community with which I worked. All I can tell you is that some of these falks could feel in a similar way members of another community would feel when one would address them in some other way than “speach challenged”.
Regardless, I respect your point. Just keep in mind that this particular design is an obstacle to more than those who cannot see at all. How do you address them as well? (not a “challenge”, just a question).
Thanks for your comment! For me the bottom line us to help them not to fall in this trap.
Gregg.
What about animals? This design doesn’t take into account small animals that can’t read signs.
Let’s take care of our “human” fellows first.
Different animals have different instincts that will let them avoid this obstacle.
people, the fucking posts are WAIST HIGH. Any visually impaired person I know encounters railings and puts their hand on the damn thing and navigates around it.
consider yourselves damn lucky the City did anything. They didn’t HAVE to.
While I feel bad for the fellow, his friends, and family, I’m not sure this qualifies as a design flaw. I mean as a cyclist I realize I have a certain responsibility to pay attention to what’s ahead of me and react appropriately; for my own safety as well as those around me. If we’re going to live in a city where people can’t be trusted not to ride a bicycle down a flight of concrete stairs, then maybe we ought to install similar barriers around mailboxes, trees, streetlights, that sort of thing.
I’m not trying to pick a fight, I just feel this particular issue has a lot more to do with personal responsibility than with design flaws.
I think the sign is enough. If a biker doesn’t notice the sign why would they notice the steps or the new barriers? These barriers are a dumb fix.
Let’s not wring our hands over possibilities that are unlikely.
Exactly, this seems like a waste of taxpayer money for cyclists that are not paying attention
I work in this area and cycle past here all the time. The problem is that the stairs leading down to a walkway appear to come out of nowhere. All previous comments as well as the city’s fix (waist-high barriers) focus on drawing attention to the stairs. However, there’s a much easier solution: Eliminate the stairs. Make it a ramp. Heck, I’ll go down to Home Depot right now and buy a couple pieces of plywood and throw sandpaper on it for good measure. Here’s what I think: When your fixes get too complicated, you need to rethink your original design.
My guess is you have never been to the stairs in question. I am an experienced cyclist, as was Fairbrother, and I too have taken an unintended trip down them, luckily I noticed them at the last second and was able to ride down them without injury.
Well I’m glad you weren’t hurt. As it happens I work about a hundred feet away from those particular stairs, and I’m up and down them probably fifteen times in a given week.