EVERETT — Casual passersby at the intersection of 52nd Street and Broadway might not look twice at the construction of new curbs. Like all new corner curbs, they have depressions for wheelchair access.
But look closer and you’ll see that on two of those corners, there aren’t any sidewalks to attach to the new curbs.
It may appear to be a stereotypical example of bureaucratic thick-headedness, and one Everett man took to the City Council on Wednesday to complain about the both figurative and literal disconnect.
Kent Peverly cited the prospect of people in wheelchairs rolling up onto the curb, only to have nowhere to go. “Why are we spending money on two handicapped ramps that aren’t going to benefit anybody?” he asked.
There’s an answer, but it’s not that obvious.
First up is the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 1990 federal law that prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public places and many other areas of life.
Any time work is done on a street corner, it must be made compliant with the ADA. The ADA doesn’t distinguish between corner curbs that have adjoining sidewalks and those that don’t.
But why on this particular corner? Again, there’s a non-obvious answer.
“It’s really part of a much bigger couple of projects,” said Ryan Sass, Everett’s city engineer.
The state Department of Transportation awards some federal money to municipalities based on accident statistics.
The source of that federal money is the Highway Safety Improvement Program. The money can be used for a number of different projects depending on what is needed at a given location, Sass said, including crosswalks, sidewalks, curbs, lighting, signaling, and so on.
The corner of 52nd and Broadway was one such intersection, flagged for having been the scene of vehicle-on-pedestrian accidents. The corner also is one block away from Lowell Elementary School and gets a lot of foot traffic.
The new raised curbs will separate pedestrians from traffic better than the previous corners had been.
“Any time you get pedestrians up on a corner, especially an arterial corner, it puts them in an improved position than they would otherwise,” Sass said.
Everett applied for and received two grants from the federal program totalling about $1.5 million.
That money will fund safety improvements at about 40 intersections throughout the city, he said, including 52nd and Broadway.
That corner already had raised corner curbs, but the depressions weren’t in the right locations. The curbs had been installed prior to the Americans with Disabilities Act, so they weren’t up to code.
In addition to the raised curbs and ADA-compliant depressions, the intersection is going to get new streetlights, better-positioned push-button controllers for the crosswalk signs, and better connections between the new curbs and existing sidewalks or bike lanes.
On the southeast corner, the sidewalk also will be extended to the bus stop.
Chris Winters: 425-374-4165; cwinters@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @Chris_At_Herald.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
