Three minutes isn’t a long walk for an old person either, unless they’re pretty badly disabled or such, and at that point they’ll have walkers with built in seating, or be in a wheelchair with a carer already.
I agree we need more public seating, and more that’s comfortable and not designed to contort you in weird ways. But seats every three minutes walk? That’s kinda insane :-P
But seats every three minutes walk? That’s kinda insane :-P
… A public bench every block is insane? You sound suburban 😆
Seriously, look at the density of public benches and bus stops and seating areas in any European metropolis or dense urban center. A bench every three minutes’ walk isn’t crazy. It’s normal for any city built for the needs of people rather than the needs of cars.
Where I live, unfortunately, a lot of benches have been removed. Because unhoused people sit and lay on them and our authorities think the best way to solve the “homeless problem” is to take the benches away. Which doesn’t help unhoused people and hurts everyone else. Loathsome.
I seriously doubt they removed seats because people were sitting on them.
More likely it was costing too much money.
At least in my city, some people don’t just sit on a seat (or sitable landscaping feature like a low wall). They eat on them, drink alcohol, leave behind food scraps rats eat the food, bottles get smashed, some people even go to the toilet next to the seat, etc. And yes - there are rubbish bins and toilets nearby.
Sometimes it’s worse, bloodstains, fights, etc.
The only parts of the city that have seats are cleaned three times a day and heavily policed with plain clothes officers on foot patrolling the area 24/7/365. That cost wasn’t necessary 10 years ago but it is today. We could go into why but that’s largely irrelevant.
I seriously doubt they removed seats because people were sitting on them.
Really? With all the awful shit that cities do to homeless populations, this is hard to believe?
Check out some examples of “hostile architecture”. Cities will dump a ton of money on making areas unusable for anything other than walking. Hell, there’s no benches at all where I live, and instead there’s signs at major intersections saying it’s illegal to gove money to the homeless, and I’ve seen much worse in other cities.
Also, what’s three minutes for one person could be ten or twenty for someone else who can barely stand for five
There’s a restaurant I like to go to that if you have certain disabilities, good luck getting there. The closest handicap parking spot is a block and a half away and there’s only one, or a bit further there are a few in a parking garage. It’s an uphill incline to get there and there’s not a single bench the entire way between parking and the restaurant. If you’re disabled but not to the point of being in a wheelchair, or don’t have someone who can push that wheelchair uphill, and don’t have a mobility scooter, you ain’t getting there
And that’s with our current car infrastructure, and just one example out of many of disabled hostile design in our car centric reality that people who’ve not had to navigate it from that perspective just don’t understand. And they never bother asking someone who does experience it. So, I’m pretty tired of hearing the bullshit excuse of how it would be bad for disabled people if we went to walkable cities with public transit.
Stop using disabled people as your gotcha argument
It’s really powerful if you’re a disabled person too. Learnt some great advice in that community. Stuff like spiked covers for the handles on your wheelchair so people don’t just move you without your consent.
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.
I saw this in Hong Kong, which I know isnt known for its walkability or anything but it has amazing public transport you can get anywhere to, and then it has like absolutely no sits anywhere… if there were they are taken by the other thousands that are looking for a sit hahaha
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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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