Saturday, September 19, 2009
Are you blind? Beware of the Newly Designed Downtown Sidewalks. By Geniusofdespair
Imagine you are blind, walking with a cane in our newly designed downtown. I did when I took these photos, and to me our downtown sidewalks look like an obstacle course. And, yes, as a reader pointed out, I certainly acknowledge the brickwork looks nice, but we are imagining we are sight-impaired on this post. (hit on "read more" for more photos)
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15 comments:
Sidewalks look very nice and are wheelchair friendly. The city has done a great job!
They do LOOK nice. I do wonder why the trees are placed all over the sidewalk - could there not have been a straight path for the sight challenged? That wouldn't have been hard to plan. This looks like the work of the DOT.
As the landscape architect for the FDOT, Miller Legg began the project through extensive coordination with FDOT, the city of Miami, the Miami Heat organization and the Miami Downtown Development Authority. One of the primary design directives was a streetscape design that would adhere to the hardscape concept designed in the late 1980s by Brazilian landscape artist Roberto Burle Marx for Biscayne Boulevard south of the project.
It is not about the pretty brickwork...it is about not having a clear path from crosswalk to crosswalk...a few feet of CLEAR PATH.
And, what the hell is going on with the sidewalk going to the Arsht center, look at that photo --- No. 3. Does that work for you?
Don't have to be blind to see that sidewalks in miami are not really for people, they are for planting sign posts for car traffic and trees to make the photo look like the renderings. The "planners" rely on what we the fringe are reluctant to concede, that miami is and will continue to be pedestrian/bike un-friendly. Our commons have been appropriated with crowd control in mind presumably for the public good. Why do many parks and beaches close at sunset?
Swamp. They close because of money to police them.
*cough*DDA**cough*
Half that stuff needs to be redone. Major fail.
My friend tripped and fell on her face in that area. She tripped on a broken sign post with a stub sticking out of the ground. The city was nice enough to ask if she was injured when I reported the problem.
The city was only nice because they needed to put risk management on notice.
"Watch out for that Tree!!!!
Sincerely,
George of the Jungle
tom
Genius, your pics started out with positive feedback - then you made your point, back to your negative self.
The city is doing a great job. Stop with the negativity.
Your begining to sound like a Regalado/Natacha fan.
If the Downtown Development Authority dimwits would come down from their $300,000 per year 29th floor offices, after enjoying their $2 mil per year in pay and benefits, then they could see the cracked sidewalks and extensive graffiti polluting downtown that make downtown look like a such a slum.
Anonymous above this one:
"Despair" do you not understand what choosing that name means...do you get me at all?? Guess not. Nor do you get the post.
And, Natacha is not negative she is dangerous. You don't know what you are talking about.
What the anonymous poster probably has never done: Walk from Bayside to The Arsht Center to see how the sidewalk functions. From an auto it looks pretty and exiting a car it functions just fine. Does it also work for walkability? Thank you GoD for walking the walk. I appreciate your doing the research. Anonymous must have designed it.
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