I’ve heard third hand from a GC friend who knows some folks who worked on various parts of Iron Works that the pedestrian bridge is out for now. The reason he heard is that they don’t believe they can meet ADA requirements in the space they have available. Just rumors, no idea how accurate this is. To me that seems like something that would have been planned for from the start. I doubt it will happen any time soon.
Gonna call MAJOR B.S. on this. Pathetic excuse. Shouldn’t take even a half-decent engineer to figure this out, easily.
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I could see it being the case that they can’t meet ADA requirements without spending way more money than they thought they would or something like that. It definitely cant work the way they have it shown in the plan view on the Forge website. There’s a pretty significant grade change, with Iron Works being much lower than Dock 1053. Iron Works sits about 5 or 6 feet below Atlantic Avenue, while Doc 1053 sits like 10 feet above it.
I dont know much about ADA requirements, but I know they have a maximum ramp slope of 1:12. It would take like 200 feet of ramp to get up high enough to cross Atlantic. I think it would require an elevator to do it without pretty much filling in that courtyardish area between the buidlings with ramps.
That said, I dont really know what Im talking about. Dont even know if it would be required to meet ADA requirements at all. I just think a ramp up to a bridge would be near impossible to fit in the space they originally showed the bridge in their plans.
Definitely wouldnt call it easy.
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Sigh. Disability inclusivity is obviously good, but it feels like a shame that in a tight space we can’t have a simple overpass with steps or a steeper slope that will benefit 90-95% of the visitors to the area.
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Agree. This one feels like a case where perfect shouldn’t be the enemy of the good. Exceptions have a place in communal valuation. Also, wonder how that flesh chewer 'slide works into this discourse ?
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Completely agree. What’s a person in a wheelchair supposed to do now, roll into traffic and bump into the curbs and guardrails? No bridge helps no one instead of the 99.9% of people actually trying to go between the developments.
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The whole situation is just kinda silly. The bridge doesn’t preclude any intersection upgrades and it’s not like anyone with ADA needs will want to cross Atlantic as it is…but not building it due to ADA requirements helps nobody.
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Is a tunnel completely unfeasible for some reason?
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I was just coming to say if you can’t go over, go under!
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Best use of (keep) Raleigh Boring Co. ever…!
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It’s probably a lot more expensive. Couldn’t they just build a normal pedestrian bridge and stick one of those little electric handicapped lifts on each side of it?
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The problem with this, and the reason for ADA existing, is what’s to stop every developer everywhere from using this logic? That’s the logic used in most countries around the world, and handicap access is awful most places outside of America.
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100%, but there has to be a process to demonstrate an unworkable tradeoff like this bridge.
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I disagree. I think it’s incredibly important to serve those that are disabled in terms of accessibility when it’s technically feasible. However, here, it doesn’t appear to be technically feasible. Right now, it’s being considered to the point that the project gets cancelled.
Right now, the alternative is that a disabled person will have to drive/be driven from one side to the other. That solution will still be the case if the bridge is not built. If they can prove that it is not technically possible or feasible to build this bridge to suit ADA compliance, and go through a large number of hurdles doing and proving this, then I am absolutely fine with a bridge that suits 95% of the general population.
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Fair enough, if it’s actually technically not possible to do, I agree. If it’s just more expensive, I don’t agree.
I was over there earlier and it appears that the RIW complex sits below the road and Loading Dock enough that you could just tunnel straight under but I’m not an engineer
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Sewer pipes, stormwater, etc would be the biggest hurdles. Sometimes those pipes are 15’+ underground
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It probably doesn’t meet ADA code, which is a debatably overly prescriptive code, but these common outdoor beach lifts are super cheap. This should not be insurmountable
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Can we talk about the lack of parking for Phase 1 of RIW? Probably not a big deal now that only one office tenant and two retail tenants are open for business, but what’s going to happen once this thing is fully occupied? You only have to look across the street (Dock 1053) for an example. That place has a SEA of parking, but it’s still difficult to find a spot.
…if only the City could offer protected bike/ped lanes to help ameliorate this issue 
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If only the City didn’t leave a gaping hole of transit access between Wake Forest/Falls and Capital and had a bus running up Atlantic now rather than planning one and kicking the can.
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