Dude. I’m 59 and big. Just looking at that picture made my knees pop.
By the time we have walkable cities we’ll probably have cybernetic legs and hover mobility scooters
Benches are just so nice. The value-to-price proposition is amazing and I don’t see why any city would disagree with this other than incompetence. I recently ordered a bench for a little public garden in my neighbourhood and plopped it there for 100usd. People love it :)
Cities discourage benches because the homeless might use them and that would mean acknowledging the homeless exist.
They did that in my city. They build a whole station with zero benches because according to the asshole architect, “station are meant to board train, not to wait”.
That’s not always the case tho. Sometimes cities just forget benches exist. My town has no real homeless issues but still lacks of benches for some reason and the public parks team would rather spend the money on touristy shit like “dancing fountains” smh
Send them a letter saying it would be nice for your old grandpa to sit on a bench and look at those dancing fountains.
Also benches, like any public property, get vandalised, stolen and covered in bird and other droppings and need costly maintenance to keep in usable condition.
And like any public property (like, say, roads), we have the mean to repair them.
What costly maintenance do benches need?
It’s more that it makes the area unpleasant and even perhaps dangerous to others. Sucks but it is what it is
From What is a Walkable city:
These spaces incorporate elements like seating areas, public art installations, water features, and greenery, enhancing the overall aesthetic appeal and providing a respite from the built environment.
and
Ample green spaces, street trees, and seating areas provide comfortable resting spots and encourage people to enjoy their surroundings.
So… yes? Like I know it might be cathartic to someone driving-by (heh) the concept, but seating is very much in the design of walkable cities.
I think their point is that even in situations that able bodied people might consider to have “ample seating,” it may not be enough for those with disabilities. 3 minutes of walking between benches, I’d say, would probably be considered pretty ample seating by most city planners. It would be no where near enough for my dad, or for my mom before she went full time in the wheelchair. One solution to this could be something along the lines of the little carts they have at Walmart, but like, owned by the city and able to be checked out for free, combined with some people with mobility issues actually getting a say in how the city is planned out, and where the ramps and stuff are for the sidewalks.
No, we absolutely don’t need to inundate every city with eight benches per block. (Two per side.)
There’s a point at which you have to meet halfway, and if you can’t walk for five minutes straight you should probably be in a walker or wheelchair.
In general I agree that cities need to be more walkable, and that includes seating. But the “some people can’t walk three minutes” idea needs to go.
I’m a part time wheelchair user with some walking ability and there are a lot of spaces in my city that are too inaccessible for me to use. I don’t mean internal space, I mean the built environment of the city itself. There’s one route which, if I’m walking, is 0.2 miles. If I’m in my wheelchair, it’s just under 0.6 because I have to take a weird route that doubles back on myself, because city designers put little ledges everywhere without considering how mobility aid users can be impacted
Of course you’re right to highlight that a properly supportive and inclusive world requires more components than just modifications to the built environment, but I think that making accessible spaces needs to be in people’s minds from the get go, and that “some people can’t walk three minutes” is a useful idea for this.
Thanks for adding context Yeah, wheelchair accessibility is still a very relevant thing for us to work on. (Not to mention general walkability.) I think a bench quota is a bit tangent to that.
There’s a good YouTube video on “Stroads” and how they’ve ruined our cities.
Yeah, totally unreasonable for people to have seating options. I mean the downsides are just so numerous…
Mandates often have unforeseen consequences and always create some burden. It’s important to consider them carefully, even if they sound good on the surface, and make sure they’re worth the cost.
A quick social media comment that “there should be benches every three minutes” isn’t well considered policy. What even is a three minute walk to someone not capable of walking for five?
The sentiment is in the right place. The words are not.
If 3 minutes is too far of a walk you may need a mobility scooter/other mobility aid.
What do you mean, I sit in my car all the time
But do you shit in your car?
Never assume a bottle of apple juice in a footwell is apple juice.
Could well be brake fluid or coolant. I know at least one guy who got their bottles mixed once.
It’s the brownies in the glove compartment I’m worried about.
Oh man. I want unread this.
Sittable cars means shittable cars send tweet
We also need shittable cities. It is a massive pain to be out without a public restroom, especially at night when the already slim toilet options get locked up. My best strategy has been going to police stations and bothering a cop for a bathroom key at 1am. If nothing else, it’s funny.
Shout out to all of the fellow Lemmy people with IBS/IBD who cannot be more than 5 minutes from a bathroom and yet have no right to one in public. It’s a legitimate disability that the ADA does not cover despite more and more people having it. The right to accessible bodily waste disposal should be recognized the world over.
@CleoTheWizard @Sdnimm543 do you mind explaining your comment that the ADA doesn’t cover it? I’m pretty certain that GI disorders are included in the ADA
What I mean by this is that the ADA recognizes it as a disability and you can get work accommodations for it, but the ADA does not require access to public bathrooms to be made available. I view it as an accommodation similar to wheelchair ramps on sidewalks or businesses, the law should absolutely change.
Some states have enacted their own policy that allows you to carry and show a card that states your disability and forces businesses to open their restroom to you, even if its employees only. This should be done at the national level though.
I’m not an expert on this btw, this has just been my own experience and research on it having IBD myself.
One of the rare things that America actually does pretty well. There are restrooms in practically every building.
And there are a lot places its just a public bathroom no need to pay. Less true on the coasts till you get to the highways in exp though.
In my personal experience, ~95% are public, though as you said it depends on the area
This. When I see cities without public restrooms (and not just on the most touristy areas) I just assume that they don’t care about their citizens. It’s such a basic need.
In more than one way. When I’m out with my dogs I sometimes have to carry their poop for kilometers because my city can’t be bothered to set up some bins along the walkways. The very few that are around are at playgrounds where I’m not allowed to enter with the dogs. And then for whatever reason they realize they’ve got a bunch left and just install five of them at one place.
I hate that many other people don’t pick up after their dogs, but in a way I understand at least some of their frustrations. They’re assholes nonetheless.
@Sdnimm543 @stabby_cicada I believe India has a solution for you.
If that ain’t white privilege I don’t know what is
Yeah, but better to annoy cops with it than gas station employees
I think they live in one of the uncivilized countries that don’t have a free public restroom in every store and in parks and such
Like England
Savages…
I’m american, it’s still hard to find a free toilet in the city sometimes outside of subway stations.
As in they have a “bathrooms for customers only” sign or they have an actual set fee for using the facilities?
yeah, fair
I once turned in a wallet I found on a bench near a police station and the way they spoke to me and asked questions made me never want to enter a police station again. And I’m white.
Absolutely! I don’t even have any bowel related health issues and occasionally find myself in trouble.
The worst was when I used to go running along the river the city I lived in. For years, the public toilet I occasionally used was open 24 hours. Then one day, for no reason and with no notice, they started locking it between 9 pm and 9 am. The day I discovered that was not a good day.
Knowing that I needed ready access to a toilet a few times a month was enough to curtail my running to the point where I just quit.
And there’s a good chance you’ll be disabled before you even get old.
With how the world seems currently, getting old might not even be on the table
I think people were laughing less at the sentiment, and more at the “send tweet” at the end.
I know I was.
Huh?
Sits on the ground
I don’t know what’s going on here.
If you’re like me and have to sit down frequently for low blood pressure reasons, sure. But if you have to sit down for mobility disability reasons that unfortunately just won’t do because it’ll be hard to sit down so low let alone get back up.
Hrm. Tokyo probably wouldn’t be considered a walkable city in that person’s view. Benches can be thin once you get outside the station area. Most people live within 20 minutes of their station (rents drop dramatically after that in most cases), but 3 would probably be too expensive, especially for a pensioner (not sure how old this self-proclaimed old person is). Tokyo is doing better than it used to in terms of escalators and elevators, but a lot of places still just have stairs for now. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in a wheelchair or on crutches around here, though it’s mostly doable.
I don’t think they referred to themselves as old. I think they’re disabled and bringing up the fact that old people have similar issues because everyone gets old.
OK, I can see that interpretation, too.
My first thought: Tokyo is highly walkable but not sittable. You are always supposed to go somewhere. You sit at your destination or in the subway.
We do have a lot of small parks, but basically yes
Vancouver has a lot of flaws, but walkability and accessibility are things that it does better than most other big cities.
Quickest thing to notice about the part of the town I’m in near the senior center, where the walking trails go through it there’s SIGNIFICANTLY more seating and trash cans. There’s benches spaced out around the rest of town too but honestly the buses are probably more reliable for that, unless it’s a busy day or time and you have to stand there too. Downtown has a lot of public seating too but the spacing is weird and it’s just a busy area where that seating might be taken, or sticky, because there’s a bunch of ice cream shops over there and people dripping or spilling has become enough of an issue that it’s not uncommon to see a “NO ICE CREAM” sign.
What about shitable cities? We need more free toilets!
Yeah, going on a roadtrip with my mum is a constant quest for reaching the next toilet, often relying on the goodwill and staff toilets of stores. And there’s genuinely trips she just cannot or does not do, because there’s no toilets on the way.
Absolute insanity to me that we’ve outlawed peeing outside, without having free toilets available everywhere.
Sadly, that doesn’t always help. I’ve lived in a city with several public toilets. Some people would still rather piss on a wall ~30 metres away from the public toilet rather than use it.
They probably reduced the amount of people doing that, though.
Are the public toilets dirty or have a fee?
Both, from what I heard
Then maybe we shouldn’t blame homeless people for shitting on the street lol. How else are they supposed to do it?
“it’s a three minute walk to the nearest toilet”
My aging engineer of a father had an idea for a great design that keep getting updated in my head. He said he would like some kind of passive exoskeleton strapped on his legs and pelvis. When sitting though, it would put some springs in tension that would then help him lift back up. I think it could also be designed to have a locked mode to “sit” comfortably against any straight wall/tree.
Nothing new, it’s called a pelvis orthosis.
Interesting! But after a bit of research I find nothing of the sort: either they are device that prevents flexion up to a certain angle but do not help movement or they are active motor-aided designs. Would you have an additional keyword or a link?
You basically found it. They relieve pressure on the joints, in addition to locking certain angles that hurt. Springs would essentially do the same thing, but more dangerous.
Helping upward movement is the whole point of the contraption, but thanks, I’ll probably buy some of these and strong springs to do some tests.
Post your progress and results on the community, I’m curious!
Not to discourage creativity, but I think there was a whole documentary about how bad an idea spring loaded exoskeletons are. Five Nights at Freddy’s or something like that?
Springs are some of the most dangerous things in engineering, especially strong ones. There is a reason why you don’t fuck with the garage door. Anything happens - the person falls over, a bicycle hits them, etc - and it’s a tragedy waiting to happen
This is how engineers die:
In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted polio and was left severely disabled. He devised an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. On November 2, 1944, at the age of 55, he was found dead at his home in Worthington, Ohio. He had been killed by his own device after he became entangled in it and died of strangulation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.
Safety? What’s that?
Considering that he also invented leaded gas and freon it’s almost more like his bad inventions finally caught him personally
I wonder how much weight an effective design would add. It would probably need to be made out of some decent material, which would probably drive up the cost.
Aluminium would probably suffice, I doubt it would add more than a kilogram even if made of steel. You need an articulation that can hold let’s say 150kg for an overweight person putting all their weight on one leg. It is not a crazy mechanical constraint. Bikes handle more with lightweight structure and more complex mechanisms.
