Let's talk about ramps: GSA can't figure out what's wrong with picture

registerguard.com ^ | August 26, 2003 | A Register-Guard Editorial

[bicycle thug]

Remember those puzzles you used do when you were a kid - the ones with the caption that read: "What's wrong in this picture?"

Sure, we're grown-ups now. But it's never too late to have a little fun. So, what's wrong with the above artist's rendering of the entrance to the new federal courthouse in Eugene?

	Photo: Howard Davis / GreatBuildings.com

Very good. Most of you got it right away. Something important is missing - the ramp that will allow disabled people to join their fellow citizens who are ascending the grand staircase that leads to the grand plaza and the front door of the halls of justice.

There are some folks who look at this picture and don't see anything wrong. They're the General Services Administration officials who are in Eugene today for a noon public hearing at City Hall - a hearing where they'll hear from people with disabilities and public officials who are eager to help them figure out "what's wrong with this picture."

Despite repeated pleas by people with disabilities and other Eugene residents and public officials who are committed to accessibility, the GSA stubbornly refuses to incorporate a ramp into the staircase design. Even after the judges who will work in the courthouse said they want maximum access "by any means," courthouse designers have stuck by their plans to meet minimum access standards by providing a street-level elevator.

Federal officials insist that a ramp would be impractical and would mar the building's aesthetics. They're wrong on both counts. Since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, architects have found countless creative ways to incorporate ramps into the most challenging designs. An example can be found in the right-hand column above - a photo of a striking Greco-Roman staircase-ramp combination in front of the Robson Square provincial courthouse in Vancouver, B.C.

The building and entry design is regarded as an international architectural landmark and was the work of architect Arthur Erickson. It proves that creativity, innovation - and, yes, empathy - can produce an award-winning design that not only confronted accessibility challenges but was all the more compelling for having done so.

GSA officials appear puzzled and frustrated by this newspaper's refusal - and that of many other Eugene residents - to accept their solution of a street level elevator that meets minimum federal accessibility requirements.

In a guest column last Friday, GSA spokesman Peter Gray called a recent editorial criticizing the courthouse design "an affront to the many federal employees and contractors who have sincerely and professionally labored to design a building that will be a source of great pride for the Eugene-Springfield community, Oregon and our nation."

Well, excuse us. And excuse all of those impertinent folks, both with and without disabilities, who believe that designing a new federal courthouse in the year 2003 with a front entrance that is the equivalent of the Great Wall of China to people with disabilities is discriminatory. And wrong.

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Copyright 2003 The Register-Guard
unless labeled as being from the Associated Press (AP),
in which case Copyright 2003 Associated Press

[bicycle thug]

Ah, now this is rich. A new Federal Building in terminally liberal and PC Eugene, Oregon that is currently planned without a ramp.

A eamp definately belongs there. But I am always amazed when a situation like this has this sort of irony.

[Phantom Lord]

I wouldn't be surprised if this staircase violated some saftey codes here in America (it is in Canada). I would be surprised to find out that there wasn't a hand rail requirement on those stairs, and that the ones on the sides were "too far apart" to meet the requirements.

[.cnI redruM]

The idiot who wrote that swill needs to breath long and hard into a paper bag. Then he can try again without the hyperventilation.

[bicycle thug]

From today's letters to the editor of this particular newspaper;
Monument to discrimination

The controversy over the new federal courthouse in Eugene has reached the Paralyzed Veterans of America in Washington , D.C. It is disheartening to learn that people with disabilities continue to be an afterthought as new buildings are designed.

Such matters as security and water tables clearly dictate the manner in which new buildings must be designed. But as hundreds of buildings (including courthouses) designed across the country over the past decade have demonstrated, barrier-free design can be incorporated even in the most challenging circumstances.

The issue is not whether the new courthouse is in compliance with the letter of the law - it clearly is. But aesthetic design and accessible design do not have to be incompatible. That this project came this far shows its designers do not "get it."

PVA has over 20,000 members who use wheelchairs, including those in a very active Oregon chapter. Sadly, the number of veterans eligible to join our organization has increased due to the war in Iraq. As these newly paralyzed men and women return to their communities, the last obstacle they need is for a courthouse to turn an indifferent face to their needs and dignity.

Thirteen years ago, President George Bush said as he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, "Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down." If the design is left as it is now, Eugene's courthouse will be a new wall. And, rather than standing as a momument to equal justice for all, this building will stand for decades as a monument to discriminatory design.

JOHN C. BOLLINGER

Deputy Executive Director
Paralyzed Veterans of America
Washington, D.C.

[Prof Engineer]

Federal officials insist that a ramp would be impractical and would mar the building's aesthetics.

Liberals. That wouldn't stop them from ramming it down a private owners throat.

[bicycle thug]

Good luck. The prose in that paper usually is written that badly. I also am going to have to check out just how accessible their new building in North Eugene is.

It would be just like them to have made the same sort of design blooper in their new digs.

[D. Brian Carter]

courthouse designers have stuck by their plans to meet minimum access standards by providing a street-level elevator.

So the problem is...?

[bicycle thug]

"So the problem is...?"

...that 1 - this is going to be a Federal Building. The sort of place that has to be ready if bad things lightning rod their way into that place. Don't forget that Eugenre is a place not without a domestic terrorists infestation (ELFers), 2 - elevators don't work in fires and if the power goes out, and 3 - handicapped people should have the peace of mind knowing they can enter or exit a building like this under their own steam.

[bicycle thug]

Eugenre=Eugene

[CalvaryJohn]

We had a good one here in town. The architect designed the new band room for the high school with doors that were two inches smaller than the kettle drums.

[RightWhale]

The architect designed the new band room for the high school with doors that were two inches smaller than the kettle drums.

Architects usually fail to consult stringbass players also.

[dfrussell]

Um, it appears to have a ramp to me.... can't quite be sure in looking at the photo, but it appears to start at the lower left and zig-zag up the stairs.

I actually thought it was a clever design -- incorporating the ramp into the steps.

[bicycle thug]

They have a simular ramp embedded into the steps at Pioneer square in Portland too. It works well and is quite attractive.

[T-Bird45]

You are absolutely correct concerning rails for the ramp and more rails on the stairs. However, it is an elegant solution as far as aesthetics are concerned.

Leave it up to the government to grant themselves an exception when any private entity would be looking at a beady-eyed building code inspector refusing to stamp plans for construction and issue a permit.

[steve in DC]

There is an additional requirement that the two sides of a ramp have a slightly raised lip so a wheelchair cannot easily run its wheel(s) off of an edge.

One might/could run a wheelchair slightly to one side of this ramp, catch a wheel or two on a step, turn sideways and tip right over.

Other than that detail and the few you raised, I think it is a real clever design.

[Clinging Bitterly]

I like the ramp at the Robson Square building - it's sorta what I envisioned when folks started getting all het up about the lack of same at this proposed new building.

I like the look of the new building, but also agree it should have ramps and I don't think they'd hurt it's appearance. The only thing I don't like about it is the name. The late Senator Morse (D) already has plenty of things around here named for him. I think it's great that the city parks dept. has dedicated the lower 40 of his estate as the place for city dwellers to go and run their dogs. We even took ours out there sometimes (her favorite part of the trip was always the stop at the Wendy's on Willamette to get her a burger).

But I digress. I wish the GSA would just agree to build a damn ramp and the editorial page would get back to important issues. I'm just about as tired of this as I am of the Bush haters that continue droning on about the Florida 2000 election results.

[bicycle thug]

Regarding the naming of the joint after the late Wayne Lyman Morse I am numb to it. I mean, here we have the Hynix Corporation getting millions off their taxes under false pretenses donating pennies on the dollar getting a room in the employment office on Oakmont Way named after them. We have Congresscritter Peter DeFasio (D) getting his name on a bicycle bridge in reward for gaining the pork barrel funds for it under Clinton while he is still in office. Floors of the University of Oregon's buildings have been named after Japanese Corporations in return for monies, as well as the Law School and University Library being named after members of Nike's Phil Knight family.

The way they name things of note locally is insulting and outragious. Hell, why not rename Eugene, "You Can't Get There From Here" in honor of the complete cluelessness to the place these daze. ;-)

[N. Theknow]

It is disheartening to learn that people with disabilities who are left-handed continue to be an afterthought as anything new buildings are is designed.

[Clinging Bitterly]

>> Hynix...getting a room in the employment office on Oakmont Way named after them.

Didn't know that. It's been a very long time since I had a reason to set foot in that place. But it figures.

I don't understand what you mean by false pretenses though. Seems to me, they've done remarkably well considering the market and what the city has put them through with the construction permits & so on. The council and the P & D department knew more about what was going to happen with that development than Hyundai did, sometimes it seemes as though they were making up the rules as they went along, particularly with regard to the whole ridiculous wetlands issue. And it was the city that misled the public about what some of it's expenditures would be in relation to this plant, not Hyundai. They fully held up their end of the bargain. Hyundai, and now Hynix, never guaranteed a single job. When they started the project, memory chips (which are almost like a commodity in the market) were selling high and it was a high profit business. By the time the plant opened, prices had fallen dramatically and the company had already seriously considered mothballing the project. Even if they had, it would still have been a net plus for the local economy. It was a good sized construction project, employing hundreds of local and regional workers for some years, plus you have to add in the street work and quite a bit of adjacent development. The people working on it lived here and paid taxes and bought goods and services here while they were on those jobs, and now the company still has a few hundred people working there in spite of the tough times. Every penny of this is money that would not have entered the local economy if not for the project, and that project enabled me, personally, to reenter the local capital goods market after having to spend most of the '90s working 70 miles from home. The city's investment in this was building maybe half a mile of already planned street improvements, water and sewer lines to serve the plant, and the acceleration of the already planned construction of the replacement 36 inch crosstown water main. That which doesn't grow dies < /rant >.

I agree with you though on the odd ways that things get named around here, but I think our Congressional delegation picked the name for the courthouse. I don't guess I should expect them to pick the name of any Republican (and at least Morse used to be one before that horse kicked his brains out).

Dave in "We Are Totally Confused About Just Who the Heck We Are, Aren't We?"

[bicycle thug]

LOL! Hey, great 'rant' Dave. Thanks, I've missed hearing them live and up close. ;-)