1 If you saw this post a few hours ago and then wondered were it was, it was postponed for a few hours to let the election post flourish. Sorry the old comments got lost in the shuffle.

2 The one thing that has made me doubt my conservative values is the benefit i get from government mandated wheelchair access.. And I hate opportunist lawyer parasites busting businesses for big money while making them do it. But I benefit from it every day, and when I go to foreign countries it is a disaster for wheelchairs in comparison to the USA.

3 It should be quite clear you need curbside elevators. Shut up and pay your taxes or a no-knock raid is headed your way.

4 Huh.  They've been installing the same damn things in the neighborhood where I work.  No idea why, they just came in and dug everything up.  Nationwide bullshit?

5 Since I know nothing about LA, I was going to mention that some of the pictures sort of reminded me of Mulholland Dr.

Imagine my disappointment at no Naomi Watts/Laura Harring action. Imagine!

6 If you want to do something and have it cost more, take more time to complete and in the end be either redundant or unnecessary, have the government do it.

7 > 2 The one thing that has made me doubt my conservative values is the benefit i get from government mandated wheelchair access.. ... Posted by: Village Idiot I hear ya. But, in this neighborhood, there is just the veneer of accessibilty. You don't get any access and we all lost money.

8 4 Huh.  They've been installing the same damn things in the neighborhood where I work.  No idea why, they just came in and dug everything up.  Nationwide bullshit?

Posted by: soulpile is... expendable, gop b., s.a. at August 10, 2011 01:56 AM (afWhQ)

Probably the stimulus dollars finally getting spent. Here in the Bay Area they've been tearing up medians all over the place for the past couple years.

9 "None of them are wheelchair accessible!"
-Shhhh! Don't give them any ideas! You don't want to end up with a ramp mandate!

10 The other 18 homes share the same feature. None of them are wheelchair accessible!

You just need that trolley Dr. Lecter used in Hannibal. Problem. Solved.

11 Psst, your cracks showing.

12 Those are probably a result of an unfunded mandate. That's when the feds tell the municipalities that they have to build wheelchair ramps whether they need them or not. It's the feds way of getting what their supporters want without having to come up with the money for it.

13 Well in fairness the wheelchair ramps aren't just about access for the current residents. They are also for visitors, or if a disabled person buys a house on your block, or if heaven forbid someone on your block becomes disabled. I agree that it's stupid to be putting in wheelchair ramps when the need for them is pretty low, though. If they are bound and determined to install wheelchair ramps it would be a better use of money to do it in a heavily traveled area, not some sleepy cul-de-sac. Better still not to borrow the money in the first place. I guarantee the wheelchair ramp construction is due to some ADA lawsuit.

14 They did the same in my small town, stimulus money went to replacing wheelchair curbs with new improved wheelchair curbs (slightly different design and they had yellow plastic rumble strips). Then since they were tearing up the curbs to put the new ones in, they had to install temporary asphalt ramps to allow wheelers to still use the sidewalks. These sidewalks are used by 2 or 3 people in wheelchairs, but for the cost we could have paid for personal assistants to help them get around for years.

15 Hey, fella... in North Hollywood there is a whole "redevelopment" district that got cash from either the state or the feds, right by the nauseating metro stop out there. Gaia knows how much they spent on subsidizing a swanky grocery store next door that went under, but it did. And they put up a very expensive and ugly "NoHo" sign over Lankershim a few years ago; one of those "public art" projects. It looks like a rendition of vomit in sheet metal. If that didn't come out of taxpayer pockets, I am Green Lantern crossed with Christina Hendricks. Tony Villar's city wins the prize for Most Likely To Be Boned.

16 Yes, they also replaced our neighborhood too! There can't be any sane reason for it other than someone got some money from the State or Fed and had to find a reason, any reason, to keep it. Use or loose it I guess. This is insane. The old ramps were fine, less than 20 years old and no cracks.

The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions and is also wheel chair accessible!

17 Communities do it specifically because there's borrowed federal money to do it with. Not one mayor, city council, county board, etc. has the stones to refuse free money. When in actuality if a neighborhood needed a few wheelchair access curbs an organization like the Jaycees could come over some Saturday morning and do it with donated funds. You know, like we used to.

18 I bet those were some expensive ramps. In my town they installed a block of new sculptures along the sidewalk next to a park and then came in three months later and tore the park out and rebuilt it, sculptures and all.

19

Yeah, what he said. Our neighborhood got the fancy ramps with the yellow rumble strips, clearly your bureaucrats are just lazy and slothful since they didn't figure out the more expensive way to build them.

The ramps also benefit parents of small children in strollers, and the elderly who might not be in a wheelchair but do have mobility issues. And makes it easier to ride one's bicycle on the sidewalk when traffic gets heavy.

However, it isn't possible to have everything that's nice to have.  Regarding the post below about the public not wanting to hear the truth about how our spending habits have put us in the position of drowning in debt, this is yet another example of ways that bureaucrats who shouldn't have jobs in the first place waste money in order to justify their own existence.

20 Communities do it specifically because there's borrowed federal money to do it with. Not one mayor, city council, county board, etc. has the stones to refuse free money. Exactly, and this is how you get cities and towns hooked on the federal crack pipe. Eventually you end up here, today.

21 Stimulus money in my town was put to good use. Special bike lanes on the road that no one uses, wheelchair ramps with special fancy bumps for extra traction, and a roundabout that not one person in my town understands how to use. Seriously, you risk death and mayhem every time you enter it. And all this when our roads have potholes and we still have to do blasted chip and seal.

Thanks President Obama! AA+ work there!

22 The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions and is also wheel chair accessible! The Road to Hell is paved with reflective safety strips, a bike lane, turnouts reserved for recharging electric cars at public expense, HOV lanes for hybrids and people who don't obey traffic laws, solar-powered emergency telephones connected to stranded-motorist counselors trained in traffic depression syndrome, and CalTrans workers breaking asphalt during rush hours. It only costs twice what it did last year, so stop complaining.

23 What was that beast thing in Restaurant at the End of the Universe? It was bred to describe it's deliciousness to the eater with enthusiasm. America has been that beast, inviting the boning. "Have some more of my rump; it's especially tender today". Getting to the end of this "crisis" journey will be painfully messy, but waiting for the journey to actually begin is excruciating.

24 I lived in Hollywood once. Miss the old Duke's and their omelettes. Anyway, I remember watching them build a covered bus stop in Texas in the 70s that was ADA compliant along with its artsy looking dome....cost $500,000. Looked so good they decided to build another directly across the street for another half mil. $500,000 for a bus stop. A. Bus. Stop.

25

My pet peeve is speed bumps aka "traffic calming devices" across county roads and city streets. A local govt flyer proudly revealed that these humps of blacktop cost $250K to build.

More than 50% of the local transportation budget goes to bikes and buses. Nice pot holes though.

26 No matter which division of government actually wrote the checks, the ramps are a requirement of the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) signed by Geo. Bush the 1st.  Since then, nationwide, we have probably spent enough on ADA stuff to hire personal slaves for life for everyone who needed the help.

Best part -- the blind and the wheelchair bound folks get in an argument over these ramps because the blind want a curb to feel with the cane, so they put those little domes on them so they might be able to feel them.  Every couple of years, the argument results in some change in the standard details for the ramps so they just built have to be removed and rebuilt.

Best-est part, there's legal racket suing governments and businesses that haven't gotten around to wasting money on this shit.  So, if a state DOT or city is going to just repave a street, they often rebuild all the ramps -not cuz they need to be rebuilt - they do it just to avoid lawsuits.

27 O/T

NoKo and South Korea exchanged arty.

Also, NoKo agents tried to assassinate the SoKorean Def. Minister today.

Shit is becoming non-artificial.

28 So, if a state DOT or city is going to just repave a street, they often rebuild all the ramps -not cuz they need to be rebuilt - they do it just to avoid lawsuits. Sigh. This is how large societies die. When the rules become so byzantine whole professions can make a living out of litigating the system against itself, cultural gangrene sets in. Rotting from the inside out.

29 SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Yonhap) -- South Korea fired three shots towards the tense western sea border after one North Korean shell apparently fell near there, the military here said Wednesday. Living in interesting times.

30 Sigh. This is how large societies die. When the rules become so byzantine whole professions can make a living out of litigating the system against itself, cultural gangrene sets in.

Rotting from the inside out.

Posted by: Mature Republicans wielding the levers of power at August 10, 2011 03:02 AM (AZGON)

In 2007, there were 60 lawyers in the U.S. Senate.  Give or take, there are 300 million Americans.  Last time I looked it up, there were about 900,000 lawyers on the bar.

So, rounding off some, a proportional representation would be about 1/3 of one Senator.  They are over-represented by about 180 times.  If you ever watch CSPAN, sometimes you can have real fun when all the various races and religions of lawyers congratulate themselves on how diverse they are.

Imagine if any other profession was over-represented by 180 times.  If 60 nurses were Senators, I would put big money on the first bill being the "Bedpan Act of 2012."

31 They have been tearing up the main street leading from my house since March in order to install bump-enhanced wheelchair ramps and to replace sections of the concrete median. From all appearances, they intend to repave the road eventually. And not one ARRA sign in evidence to deface ...

32 I was wondering if somebody was going to mention bicycle lanes.  Also bicycle trails in parks.  And we have signs that tell drivers to "Share The Road" with bicycles.  Why?  I have to pay tax on fuel for my auto.  I have to pay for auto tags.  I have to pay for a drivers license.  I have to pay for auto insurance.  I have to do all those things not only to comply with the law but also part of the money I'm out goes to build the damn roads in the first place.  What the hell do bicycle riders have to pay?  Bunch of bums.

33 "My humble abode" - looks like you've bricked in the front door, that might be a good first step for the zombie hordes - did you leave any firing ports?

34 "*My humble abode." Nice urns.

35 This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.

Were you really, insanity workout dvds?  Why it's almost as if this commenter hadn't really the top post or something ....

36 You should see the brand new bike lanes in downtown Waco. Unprecedented!

37 Could be worse, they could be forcing trains on you.  In Houston (where virtually everyone has a car) there is a one-street rail line that runs ghost trains for no one back and forth from downtown to a neighboring medical center.  The cost per rider's got to be $100 a head.

38 The government out there is just planning ahead for when they have to do more un nessary de"limbing" to make ends meet in the baroke obambicare future...

39 I think part of it is a complete reform of the tax code. 10% flat tax for EVERYONE - no loopholes, no exemptions. If everyone has theoretical "skin in the game" then everyone has an incentive to hold the bastards in government accountable. It also effectively limits their ability to waste/steal. An absolute inviolable debt ceiling would go a long way as well. Cut the purse strings and elect conservatives.

40 Wait until they come in and install rumble strips for the blind people in those wheelchair ramps.

Just in case you think I'm joking - that's exactly what they did in my rural Montgomery Co. MD home town (I don't live there any more - thank God - but I still have family there).

I've never seen a person in a wheelchair go down that sidewalk, and I would bet money that there isn't a blind person in the neighborhood - but they did it anyways.  It's not just adhesive strips either - they have to jackhammer the center of it to install special ceramic tiles.

41 69

And yet, in the USAF, majors that have been passed over twice were suddenly told that they're being ousted. True, their getting a decent package in most cases ($100,000 payout) but none of them will qualify for that pension, even though some are within three years of their 20 years of service. The Navy is proceding with reducing by thousands of enlisted ranks.

You want to solve this? Have the Feds treat the rest of the government the same way they do DoD. If they were treated half as bad as the military, we'd see costs go down. Health care costs too high? Veterans are told that their families are no longer entitled to health care. Still too high? Tell veterans the deal's been changed again; unless the problem is 'service related', you have to pay. Still too high? All dependents are herded into CHAMPUS and then something called Trident (not too sure; this was after I got out). This allowed them to reduce facilities that were trying to serve both active duty personnel and their dependents.

Meanwhile, PA is handing out cell phones as a welfare benefit.

Posted by: Blue Hen at August 09, 2011 04:20 PM (326rv)

Blue Hen - I was in {USN} until '91, when I got a medical discharge: base pay x 2 x years of service. Lump sum under $30,000, of which the IRS took a 3d of off the top. I had over 11 years in and was an E-5 - a BU2.

Years later, after it was too late, I got a letter saying "Ooops, we weren't supposed to take that 3d, you have until {date that had already come and gone} to file and get it back.

While I was getting my medical discharge, I saw healthy E-5's and up getting MORE {don't know their formula} to either separate/not re-up. And they changed the rules re; VA health care - the ONE thing I didn't get screwed over on!!!

This decimated our military, and set us up for 9/11 IMO. And I predicted elsewhere that they would repeat this under Pres. Obama.  Sounds like I was right, sad.

If they attempted this with unionized Fed. workers? Yes, it would help, but because they are unionized, they'd raise SUCH a stink, it would be chealer to just keep them!!!

Attrition is {IMO} the only way to resolve this imbalance, but since Pres. Obama changed the baseline, it wouldn't make much difference.

42 Damn! Who woke up the spammers so flippin' early?

43 Argh - sorry I posted to the wrong thread

44 Spam never sleeps.

Good morning.

45

Let me see if I have this right.

The Vapid One© gets in office, he and his handmaidens in Congress waste $800B on the Porkulus, billions more on the takeovers of car companies, the student loan industry, OCare, and a few dozen other debacles. All that money spent on one-time projects is now a permanent part of the budget.

And he says there's nothing to cut: no waste, no fraud, no abuse. He speaks of a "balanced approach" yet there are no beauraucrats losing their jobs or even having their departments cut back. None of his signature laws are on the table and nothing he's done is scaled back in any way. And he now demands more of our money to piss away.

And that's balance? We pay, he gets to keep everything he's done?

We are well and truly boned. With a pineapple. And sand.

46 Is the cement out there made of mud and Elmers glue? Looks like it wouldn't last a month.

47

They're doing this ramp stuff in my suburb at this very moment.  I wondered why - at least now I know it's lawyer induced.  Better to waste a little money now than to waste a LOT later on. 

Part of my problem with it in my specific area is that I have tried to walk to places I need to buy stuff.  Overall sidewalk coverage is piss poor.  Rather than make the very limited sidewalk system more accessible, it might have been more effective to actually have sidewalks that go to places people need to go.  The expansions could have been made accessible as they were built.

The A.D.A., which could have been reasonable and a positive thing for the future, was instead made into a destructive thing in many ways. How many older, perfectly good buildings have had to be abandoned above the first floor?  Elevator refits aren't cheap.  In the little towns in my area the old brick buildings on the main strips are largely abandoned now above ground level.

48 Any government employee who has any sort of say on spending like this, tie their salary directly to spending.  For every dollar you or your department comes in under budget, you take home $.02 or something, I dunno.  Make it so the only way they take home a salary is by cutting spending.  Hell, I'd even be willing to make it a bonus sort of thing.  Employees take home a (minuscule) percentage of whatever doesn't get spent.  Or we could fire all these worthless humps and beat them senseless.  Up to them.

49 Try this out -

The local community pool in my neighborhood needed patched (it is was 50 years old). The city was informed that any upgrades such as patching would require it to comply with current mandates including being handicap accessible, different drainage etc. The original patching and painting which has had to be done every spring somehow cost $20,000.

Long story short - it wasn't feasible to repair the pool and comply with all of the new mandates so the pool was shut down. Cost to replace the pool $12,000,000. The entire annual budget for the city.

50 Jimmah - mission creep is hurting us more then salaries

51 The problem is also that the regulations are written so that there can be NO discretion on the part of the government employee, sort of zero tolerance run amok.  There  must be wheelchair ramps at every corner, not that we should install a wheelchair ramp at each corner where a user requests one.
ADA was Bush Seniors gift to the lawyers and a farewell FU to the population.
I remember when I was growing up, we had a girl in high school that was wheelchair bound and the school had two stories.  Whenever she needed to change floors, four boys pick her and the chair up and moved her to the floor she needed to be on.  Those days are gone, now it would be four lawyers waving summonses

52 The problem is that there are not enough handicapped people.

53

Here's something I've been dealing with. Yes it's real, and it's been delaying a project for almost 2 years. A project that will be built in exactly the same manner it would have been in the absence of this bureau - just 2 years sooner - and tens of thousands cheaper.  If you wonder why your cell phone bill is high, or why you still get dropped calls - here's exhibit 1:

;" class="MsoNormal">^{"Division of Archaeology and Protection}

;" class="MsoNormal">^{Bureau for Historic Preservation}

;" class="MsoNormal">^{Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission..."}

54 This is why I dislike good government types to include Republicans. Do we want really efficient ramp deployment and redeployment? They can spend our money faster? Also my problem with bipartisanship because nothing is easier to agree on than spending other people's money.

55 We are well and truly boned. With a pineapple. And sand.

I'm guessing sand would actually smooth the ride of a pineapple.

56 In my neighborhood in Central Pa. the local gov't got a grant from Obama's stash to build a mile long walkway with trees along the river-- 1.5 Million dollars-- no one uses it and they're still planting and watering trees daily-- they say: "well, if we didn't take the money they would have given it to someone else to spend"-- it's this kind of thinking that makes blood shoot out of my eyes-- "make work projects" that benefit no one except in the moment

57 ...not much further we can cut?

Give me the knife.

58 When the city does street repairs, the repair crew attempts to contact the homeowners who are affected and ask what style of driveway entrance they want.

Cost: $0.00
Benefit: Priceless good relations.

59 Try putting a number on all the money that has been spent installing wheelchair ramps at all intersections in all municipalities throughout the entire country. Would it not have been better to put that money toward medical research to just get people out of those wheelchairs?

60

Thank you for illustrating (literally) the anti-thought of regulations.

Just last week I was in a Texas airport getting breakfast before my flight. Behind the food kiosk's counter, on public display (as required by law in every establishment that serves alcohol), there was a sign stating that the unlicensed possession of firearms on the premises was punishable by fines/imprisonment.

This was in the secured area of the airport. But the law still required that the sign be posted. So the restaurateur had to spend money on that thing and take up his wall with it, even though it served absolutely, positively no purpose.

Like those wheelchair ramps.

That's why so much "regulation" sets my teeth on edge.

61 Excellent blog, thanks for the share. I'll be a regular viewer.

62 In my city (half million + size) they dug up a mile and a half of ramps on a busy 6 lane divided road of retail and hotels, and put in brand new ramps in the same place. But only on 1 side of the road way. ??

63 "The other 18 homes share the same feature. None of them are wheelchair accessible!"

Clearly, these homeowners aren't doing their fairshare to contribute to society. They must be made to install wheelchair accessible entrance in their home to correct this grave injustice.

I'll bet these people also use corporate jets.

64 You make a very good point. 


What's funny is that we lived in California for ~4 years and during that time my husband and I both remarked on how wheel chair inaccessible (or unfriendly) most of the places we visited were.  And I don't mean just old private structures like peoples' homes, but at all sorts of venues and events.  It was odd. 

65 Hey, neighbor.

66 Those aren't wheelchair ramps, they're hobo ramps.  Hobos do a lot of crawling and this is an investment in the near future where the hobo population is expected to increase exponentially.

67
Tony Villar's city wins the prize for Most Likely To Be Boned.





LA is Detroit with palm trees and sombreros. The only time I force myself to drive south into the LA Basin is when I'm being paid to do so.

68 I live in LA also. It's not just the problem of bureaucrats-spending-other people's-money-on-things-that-don't-effect-them. It's the insanity of Law By Lowest Common Denominator as well. I just found out that at LA swimming pools, you are not allowed to have your child wear a life vest. Let me repeat that.... at LA swimming pools, you are not allowed to have your child wear a life vest. The reason, apparently, is that some parents put a vest on their kid and then don't bother to watch them. So some morons who should've needed a license to procreate are negligent parents, and LA decided the best way to protect us all was to enact a law that makes it more dangerous for my child to go to a swimming pool... for his own safety. This while I hear ads on the radio every 5 minutes reminding you it's illegal to go boating without a life vest. My head nearly exploded when the life guard was trying to explain this to me...

69 Our ramp is in the back of the house.  Unless you came through the 6 ' chain link fence with our German Shepherd behind it, you would not know we had one.

70 Psst, Arthur K. has styrofoam columns...

71

Bike lanes, my ass.  Here in Seattle, we have "bike boxes" painted boxes at intersections.  Yellow paint on pavement that cost the city $15,000 each.  If a bike is in the bike box, cars are not allowed to make a free right turn on red.  From the Seattle PI:

Each bike box costs about $15,000 to install, he said (UPDATE: the paint is actually an aggregate of crushed rock set in epoxy and costs about $10,000. It requires special skills to put down correctly, which results in $5,000 for labor, according to SDOT).

72 Here in MA towns have decided to put the bumpy plastic "patches" on the corner sidewalk ramps.  For the life of me I cannot figure out what a purpose for them.  Bigfoot braille is the only explanation.  On most corners they have cracked and broken off from the concrete anyway from the sidewalk plows in the winter time.  So here is a completely useless item which is ruined within one year of installation on top of another completely unnecessary item.  It is quite literally a new and inventive way to waste our money.

73 Greetings: Geez, I thought those were skateboard ramps.

74 Each bike box costs about $15,000 to install, he said (UPDATE: the paint is actually an aggregate of crushed rock set in epoxy and costs about $10,000. It requires special skills to put down correctly, which results in $5,000 for labor, according to SDOT). Posted by: runningrn at August 10, 2011 12:11 PM (jfHyQ) Or you could spend $125 on labor and a can of paint and re-do it every 5 years for 600 years.

75 My late life partner had multiple sclerosis and used a wheelchair to get around for 19 of our 20+ years together as she gradually became completely paralyzed and then quadriplegic (see the "About Me" page at my blog, A Conservative Lesbian, for the link to our story). I pushed her wheelchair and thanked God for every curb cut. Claiming that the Americans with Disabilities Act and compliance with its regulations for access are over-regulation or a waste of taxpayer money is where conservatives, how you say, don't have a leg to stand on. The ADA regulations that make an environment accessible make it possible for people with disabilities, especially people in wheelchairs, to have a shot at being able to work, do their own errands and enjoy recreation as able-bodied people can rather than being effectively jailed in their homes or a nursing home. I also notice that plenty of able-bodied people make good use of curb cuts--mothers with babies in strollers, bicycle riders, delivery people, and people who have difficulty stepping up or down at a curb due to a mobility impairment. In fact, so many people preferred the curb cut to the curb that I usually had to ask people to let us through. I invite you to spend a month in a wheelchair before writing on this topic again.