Death by wheelchair

The City is doing their best to kill the .  That’s a stairway that some of my Almond/Shuey neighbors would like to build in City-owned right-of-way connecting the end of Stow Avenue with California Boulevard.

For at least 30 years that I know of, residents of the Almond/Shuey have been walking downtown via a sloping dirt path at the end of Stow Avenue.  The installation of a low fence at the entry to the path and a City-constructed retaining wall and drainage ditch at the bottom hasn’t deterred everyone.  Nor has the fact that this is technically trespassing on private property.  Old habits die hard.

But why should we have to jump obstacles and trespass when the City already owns the right-of-way extending directly down the slope from the end of Stow Avenue to California Boulevard?  Why can’t the City just let the neighborhood install a stairway on the City property?  The Berkeley Path Wanderers Association does this very same thing in Berkeley all the time.

Unfortunately Walnut Creek is not Berkeley when it comes to implementing neighborhood-initiated public amenities. 

Although a straight, relatively easy-to-build stairway could be constructed from the end of Stow Avenue, the City’s Engineering Department says the stairway must connect to the sidewalk – where there is less running room and an expensive switchback design for the stairs would be required.  Would it really be so dangerous for pedestrians to walk out onto Stow Avenue to access the stairs?  It is a dead-end street, after all.  It’s not like cars go whizzing by.  We could put pavers down like they do in crosswalks to indicate a shared pedestrian/vehicle use, and install bollards so drivers know there is no through access.

But the real killer is that the City’s Legal Department has decreed that no stairs can be built at all unless they are accompanied by a 120-foot-long Americans with Disabilities Act wheelchair ramp.  Since there isn’t room in the City right of way for the ramp, the City (or the neighbors) would have to either purchase the neighboring property or obtain an easement which would severely impact the development potential for that neighboring lot. 

I’m not insensitive to the needs of disabled people.  In fact, only a few months ago my foot was in a cast and I was getting around on a knee scooter.  I wasn’t able to use the dirt path when I was pushing myself around one-legged on the scooter, and I wouldn’t have been able to use the Stow Steps if they had been a reality.  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t wheel myself downtown on the existing Almond and Shuey Avenue sidewalks.  

There is no credible need for an ADA ramp.  What these City-imposed restrictions are really designed to do is to guarantee that the Stow Steps project will be financially infeasible for our neighborhood.

The Stow Steps are being subjected to death by wheelchair.