Reply to Bike lanes violate disability access laws, new lawsuit says

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]With any luck, the lawsuit will be upheld and the city will be forced to remedy the situation by raising the bike lanes to the same level as the sidewalk (as on Virginia Ave SE and The Wharf). This will have the added benefit of preventing cars and other motorized vehicles from parking or driving in them.[/quote]

How will that solve the problem?[/quote]

It would solve the problem of cars parking and driving in bike lanes very much. It would also provide parked / stopped vehicles with direct access to the curb. Set the bike lane back a few feet from the curb and add a sidewalk across the lane and it's as good as gold. Some other ideas here: https://www.ourstreetsmpls.org/ada_compliant_protected_bike_lanes. I'm not here to be an apologist for DDOT, who mess many things up, but the notion that bike lanes are generally incompatible with the ADA is just silly.[/quote]
Are disabled people suing because cars are parked in “protected bike lanes”? It’s honestly pretty disturbing that you can be so self centered as to think that the “solution” is to improve your experience using bike lanes. Do you bother to listen to yourself?

Furthermore, the Plaintiffs are clear and say repeatedly that they DO NOT believe that bike lanes are incompatible with the needs of the disabled. [/quote]

Maybe I'm being a little Panglossian, but I'd like to think that disability advocates would be interested in making the lanes as safe as possible for users - which include those confined to wheelchairs - so as to minimize the probability of those who use them being injured or worse. [/quote]

No one is confined to a wheelchair.  The fact that you use such an ableist term shows that you don't know anything about what people who use wheelchairs need.

[b]People who are using wheelchairs are pedestrians.  They don't belong in bike lanes.   They are not safe there.   They belong on the sidewalk.  [/b] A solution that prevents motor vehicles from being in bike lanes might be needed to protect cyclists, but this is a suit that addresses the need to protect people with disabilities that impact mobility.

Yes, it's possible to design a raised bike lane that also protects people in wheelchairs, but raising the bike lane doesn't make wheelchair users safe.  In fact, it makes them less safe, because as I posted above, sometimes a vehicle has to move into a poorly designed bike lane to allow someone with a disability to access the sidewalk, and raising the bike lane prevents that.  It basically transfers the danger from the person who needs their wheelchair to the person whose hobby is biking.

And no, it's not "Panglossian" to say that we should care about your issue instead of ours.[/quote]

[twitter]https://twitter.com/ofdupont/status/1595052265882423298?s=46&t=rXHrz_bDKCJiNIm0ziMIPw[/twitter]

Please feel free to go and tell them that they “belong on the sidewalk”. I doubt they care much for your advocacy.[/quote]

Two of those are scooters and one is a walker.  None of them are wheelchairs.

I can find pictures of cyclist on the street does that mean they don’t deserve access to a bike lane?  [/quote]

Do you think splitting hairs makes you sound smart? Two of the three are electric mobility aids that can travel at more comfortable speeds in a bike lane than on the sidewalk. Which is why the users are operating them in the bike lane.[/quote]

DP: This completely misses the point about why the bike lanes are not ADA compliant. Isn't about mobility impaired people using the bike lanes, for Pete's sake. That tweet is insulting to the entire community.[/quote]

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