Heh, I'm a civil engineer in Austin, frequently work with the City of Austin, and can tell you exactly how this abomination came to be.
This came in as a site plan for the parking lot and had a pretty normal sidewalk. It does have some slope issues that make it a little tricky, it's slightly more sloped than the roadway so you can't just follow that slope (in fact, if you look in streetview at the other end of the block, there are actually stairs I am wrong about the stairs, that's the next block) so it did need some modifications. At the time, Dr. Hadley was the go-to "non standard" stuff guy at Public Works (he's quoted in the Austin Monitor article posted in this thread). He took it upon himself to direct the contractor to install this crazy sidewalk even though PW has excellent engineers skilled in installing ADA compliant sidewalks that he should have consulted with. Dr. Hadley meant well but he's like 85 years old and very stubborn.
This resulted and pissed off everyone: the other PW engineers, the ADA community, and just looked stupid. Hence the article about a sidewalk project. The city kinda doubled down in an attempt to save face. And I kinda get it, the sidewalk looks stupid but it was built by the developer at the city's direction and does techinically have the correct slope. If the city were to fix it, they'd have to do it at their expense and that would bump some other missing sidewalk that is needed more. But it does look very very dumb.
Note: Poor Dr. Hadley had a stroke a couple of years ago which is why he's no longer at PW; I'm actually not even sure if he's still alive. He really was well intended but made some really questionable calls.
knumbknuts on January 27th, 2020 at 15:55 UTC »
replete with worn down grass of people walking straight.
karu55 on January 27th, 2020 at 16:12 UTC »
It’s to outrun loose crocodiles
tviolet on January 27th, 2020 at 18:40 UTC »
Heh, I'm a civil engineer in Austin, frequently work with the City of Austin, and can tell you exactly how this abomination came to be.
This came in as a site plan for the parking lot and had a pretty normal sidewalk. It does have some slope issues that make it a little tricky, it's slightly more sloped than the roadway so you can't just follow that slope (in fact, if you look in streetview at the other end of the block, there are actually stairs I am wrong about the stairs, that's the next block) so it did need some modifications. At the time, Dr. Hadley was the go-to "non standard" stuff guy at Public Works (he's quoted in the Austin Monitor article posted in this thread). He took it upon himself to direct the contractor to install this crazy sidewalk even though PW has excellent engineers skilled in installing ADA compliant sidewalks that he should have consulted with. Dr. Hadley meant well but he's like 85 years old and very stubborn.
This resulted and pissed off everyone: the other PW engineers, the ADA community, and just looked stupid. Hence the article about a sidewalk project. The city kinda doubled down in an attempt to save face. And I kinda get it, the sidewalk looks stupid but it was built by the developer at the city's direction and does techinically have the correct slope. If the city were to fix it, they'd have to do it at their expense and that would bump some other missing sidewalk that is needed more. But it does look very very dumb.
Note: Poor Dr. Hadley had a stroke a couple of years ago which is why he's no longer at PW; I'm actually not even sure if he's still alive. He really was well intended but made some really questionable calls.