On the northwest corner of 9th Street and Capitol Mall, the construction project on the east side, Jesse Unruh State Office Building Renovation, has closed the sidewalk on the northeast corner, and therefore the crosswalk over 9th Street north side. In general, the construction project has done a good job of signing and barriers to comply with ADA. State projects, though not perfect, are more likely to be compliant with ADA than any of the city or private projects.

There should be a barrier across the crosswalk at this location, to indicate that the crosswalk is closed and the opposite side inaccessible. There is a barrier, and the correct sign, but the barrier is not blocking the crosswalk. But it can’t! If the barrier were placed to block this crosswalk, it would also block the crosswalk over Capitol Mall, which is not a closed crosswalk. That is just one of the things wrong with diagonal ramps. They make it impossible to correctly place barriers and signing for closed crosswalks and sidewalks.

Two actions could make this better. One, cover the pedestrian countdown signal so that it is not visible, and therefore subject to misunderstanding by limited vision walkers. But this would only be safe if, two, the crosswalk were completely blocked by barriers, and a temporary ramp to the Capitol Mall crosswalk placed, to the right of the barriers.

Diagonal ramps are now illegal everywhere via PROWAG, but of course existing diagonal ramps do not need to be corrected unless the corner is subject to modification for other reasons. The city has known for years that diagonal ramps are poor practice, but has continued to build them, or allow them to be built. And sadly, has even allowed illegal ramps to be built: serious concerns about Broadway.

Posts related to the work zone guidelines are linked via category ‘Work Zones‘ within City of Sacramento category. Posts about construction project issues, previous to and after the release of the draft guidelines, of which there are a huge number, are linked via tag ‘construction zone‘ within Active Transportation category.