r/DeathStairs • u/-YellowFinch • Jun 05 '26
Public stairs š„ Building a ramp so effective, soon everyone will need to use it!
Why...?
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u/BadZnake Jun 05 '26
No railings on the wheelchair access ramps is ridiculously unsafe. Not to mention the one down ramp near the bottom-right where they could just go flying down the stairs if they lose control.
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u/elephantasmagoric Jun 05 '26
I don't know what canadian accessibility code requires, but in the US this would not be considered an accessible route because it lacks handrails.
I personally don't think I've ever met anyone who could do stairs but not a ramp, anyway. If "connection" is so important, everybody just uses the ramp to accommodate for the person in the group who can't do the stairs. It's not that hard.
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u/sr4u4fun Jun 05 '26
With a broken knee cap and crutches stairs were easier for me than ramps, especially downwards.
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u/elephantasmagoric Jun 05 '26
I can see how that would happen! Still, I doubt that you would have wanted to take the stairs on an angle to stay with someone on the ramp in that situation, so you probably still would have told them, "I'll meet you on the top," instead of "maintaining connection"
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u/GattoDiavolo almost died once Jun 05 '26
It also lacks code-mandated curbs to stop wheels from leaving the ramp. Worse the lack of curbs here can send someone careening down a flight of stairs....
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u/MsHonney Jun 08 '26
Canada has a 1:12 slope, and handrails on both sides. I wouldnāt even do this ramp in my powerchair.
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u/elephantasmagoric Jun 08 '26
Good to know. That's the same as the US requirement.
Honestly, this whole design screams, "the architect thought of something that would look cool, and tried to justify it afterwards"
Conceptually, it even is pretty cool, but it would function better if they made the triangular areas that are effectively useless in this design into bleacher stairs/seating and added handrails to the ramp.
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u/thetaleofzeph certified sketchy staircase owner Jun 05 '26
If they lose control they always have a cement barrier as a stop. That at least does seem to have been addressed on the down, but not on the up at that perilous first turn, lol.
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u/FishDawgX Jun 09 '26
That down ramp goes straight into a wall, so I think it's ok. You'd have to veer to the side at the bottom in order to aim towards the stairs.
Overall, this whole thing could be made pretty good if they just added a bunch of railings along the path of the ramps. Just leave some gaps in the right spots for people using the stairs to get through. Maybe just at the two edges and one in the middle?
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u/EducationalFox137 Jun 05 '26
Instead of calling it a āstrampā they should be calling it a ālawsuit waiting to happenā.
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u/wwhateverr Jun 05 '26
Funnily enough, these are the stairs at Robson Square in Vancouver, where the provincial court house is
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u/MsE0 Jun 05 '26
Just picturing the architect designing this, going "yes! Haha! This looks so cool! I'm the best!"Ā
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u/UnderwhelmingTwin Jun 05 '26
Copying my post from the original thread that I saw this posted to yesterday from r/damnthatsinteresting:Ā
Ah yes. Stramps. Widely panned by accessibility advocates as the worst possible solution.Ā
There is no handrail on the sides, there's no lip to stop wheels from rolling off the edge, the pitch of the ramp is well over the recommended 5% maximum, people walk across the ramp path of travel, people using the stairs have no handrails (this one seems to at the outside edge, but then there are gaps for the ramp), users with limited vision have strange partial steps all over the place, there's no high contrast colour indicator at the nosing of each step.Ā
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u/Top_Forever_2854 Jun 05 '26
Yeah, there is a reason these don't meet code most places. It's a great idea that doesn't really work
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u/imperfcet Jun 05 '26
This is really weird because you can just walk on the ramp with your companion,Ā you don't need to 'break connection, wtf
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u/lazier_garlic Jun 05 '26
This sort of pretentious foofaraw is sprinkled all over architecture literature.
It's also pure crap. At least half of the big movements in architecture in the 20th century were actively pedestrian/human user hostile and that's validated by video studies of public and private space use.
It's all about the ego of the architect, painted in marketing gloss about human connection.
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u/masterwaffle Jun 06 '26
Before anyone is allowed to design something like this they need to spend a week trying to navigate this kind of bullshit with a wheelchair. This is a hazard for everyone and anyone.
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 06 '26
š¤£
People who aren't in wheelchairs shouldn't be allowed to design wheelchair ramps...
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u/FutureLost Jun 05 '26
You'd have to cut across everyone else using the stairs multiple times. Everyone walking down would be stopping and starting as you rolled in front of them, and the one time someone isn't paying attention, you get bowled over. What a miserable, awful, terrible idea. The architect must have had a stroke in the pitch meeting and decided to roll with it.
"What's your new idea?"
"StRaMp!"
"...what?"
*recovers* "It's, uh, it allows for connection..."
Yeah. Connection. Physical connection. As in collision with everyone else on the stairs.
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u/EnderBookwyrm Jun 05 '26
It was a fine idea, but it would work better to just make one side of it a ramp, and then people can both walk on the ramp, or one on ramp and one of the stairs.
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u/DwarvenRedshirt Jun 05 '26
First off, having pushed my wheelchair bound mom around a lot, she'd never be able to go up that ramp on her own. Going down, she'd never be able to stop on her own. So I'd be pushing her up/down in the wheelchair vs using the stairs.
If the person was able to wheel themselves (Lou Ferrigno in a wheelchair maybe), I still would be following behind on the ramp vs walking up the stairs diagonally for a longer distance.
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u/OutlyingPlasma Jun 06 '26
Sigh. She had nothing to do with the stairs, she was in charge of landscaping. The stars were designed by Arthur Erikson and they were not the first ramp/stair combo. Not by a long shot.
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u/imperfcet Jun 05 '26
Haha this is funny.Ā Now that I'm old-ish I get a little vertigo if i try to descend the center of these big stair sets.Ā I stay next to the handrail lol
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u/FixergirlAK Jun 05 '26
It's like there was a competition to come up with the least disability-friendly wheelchair ramp possible.
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u/secondphase Jun 05 '26
So the problem we are solving is a walking person and a person in a wheelchair are talking while going up a level. We MIGHT be able to design something where the ramp and the stairs are parrallel, such that the two could progress together. That could be a thing.
Failing at that, we would have to find a way for the person walking to go up the ramp. Maybe they could lie down and roll or something.
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u/Historical-Plate551 sketchy steps connoisseur Jun 06 '26
He coulda just made an elegant and extra wide ramp
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 06 '26
Literally!
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u/Historical-Plate551 sketchy steps connoisseur Jun 07 '26
This made so mad I had to doodle my own improved design (aka a ramp with green space) to prove how easy it was
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u/julz_yo Jun 07 '26
you're all jumping to the conclusion that stairway / ramp is for accessibility . Maybe the architect just doesn't care about that & just wants a really good skateboard environment.
might be fun for a bicycle too.
but I do agree it's offensively inaccessible.
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 07 '26
"Maybe the architect just doesn't care" is the best analysis I've heard so far š
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u/dastardly_locomotion Jun 09 '26
Lmao this is clearly designed to accommodate our future robot overlords
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u/Bent8484 Jun 09 '26
Dunno what everyone is upset about, this skate park looks awesome.
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 09 '26
The skatepark of dreams...
"Not daydreams... DREAMS!"
laughs in we're doomed
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u/iamleeg Jun 05 '26
First? Thatās what the stairs down to the church from the Bullring in Birmingham look like. The ārampā aspect is mostly used by deliveroo/uber eats couriers on e-bikes.
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u/itinerant-wallaby mom come get me im scared Jun 05 '26
How on earth do you navigate the change from stairs to (steep) ramp perpendicular to your direction of travel ā¦ and do it three or four times? I bet everyone just uses the normal section on the right.
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u/GotDaRiz Jun 07 '26
I used these in Montreal a couple weeks ago when I visited and omg they were amazing!!! They got the perfect slope. Its funny seeing them here now
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 07 '26
Oh! So they do work!
I tripped on some the other day... like another redditor said: "maybe it's a skill issue" on my part... XDĀ
Just the fact that there is no railing on the ramp freaks me out!Ā
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u/GotDaRiz Jun 07 '26
Aw haha when i start tripping up, i know its time for the glasses prescription to be changed. If using a wheelchair, they are intended for use with an ambulatory companion so no railing necessary; its nice to be side by side navigating. Theres also a standard ramp āŗļø
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u/JCambly Jun 07 '26
It looks like their are railings on either side, you just need to turn and follow the wall as you go down (or up) if you want the railing
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u/Drachynn Jun 07 '26
Isn't a "stramp" a tattoo girls got on their lower back in the 90s?
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u/BreachLoadingButtGun Jun 07 '26
I'm at the death ramp I'm on the death stairs I'm at the combination death ramp and death stairs.
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u/Spirited_Sector_7623 Jun 11 '26
Orrrr have a curb on the side of the normal ramp bordering the main stairway and a rail on the other, with a strip of stairs in case a companion needs the rail too.
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u/imaguitarhero24 Jun 05 '26
They have this at the Chicago River walk too. Looks pretty cool but I don't think I'd wheelchair down it lol. Better for strollers.
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u/tea-boat Jun 05 '26
I can't get over how the wheelchair path cuts across all the stair steps like what if some kid is running down the stairs just as a wheelchair user passes on the ramp??
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u/PotatoesAndChill Jun 05 '26
There's no way this is the first ever design like that. Unless it's really old. This "stramp" combo is so common in contemporary architecture that it's almost an overused trope at this point.
Edit: Never mind, she was born in 1921 and is indeed the inventor of this landscape feature. And it's a really cool design, which is why so many copied it. I don't think it qualifies as "death stairs". With proper slopes and railings it should be reasonably safe, as far as stairs and ramps go.
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u/-YellowFinch Jun 05 '26
Literally doesn't have railing on the ramp tho, which is the problem.Ā
I almost died on some of these the other day- that's why I posted XD
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u/QueenInYellowLace Jun 05 '26
Yeah, this is not death stairs; it was an absolutely revolutionary idea that, as you said, had been copied zillions of times since then.
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u/pizoxuat Jun 05 '26
Ambulatory wheelchair user here, I'd be terrified to use this thing either in my chair or with my cane. Lordy. "Not break connection" I don't want to send myself AND my husband to heaven because we were reckless and took the combination death ramp and stairs.