The People's Sidewalks: Curb Cuts in Berkeley, CA

Here is a short article I wrote for the (newish) magazine BOOM: A Journal of California on the curb cuts built along Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA in the 1970s. Berkeley was not the first place to have curb cuts for wheelchairs - there are documented cuts in Kalamazoo, MI, and probably the first generally accessible city was Champaign, IL, near the University of Illinois. But as far as I can tell, Berkeley was the first place to have a planned "Wheelchair Route" - a contiguous set of cuts that carved out wheelchair access in a pedestrian district (shopping area near UC Berkeley) and then through a set of well-traveled routes (Telegraph from UC Berkeley to Ashby Ave; Downtown Berkeley along Shattuck Ave). These were planned by an Urban Planning student at UC Berkeley in collaboration with activists/staff at the Center for Independent Living.

fun ideas for a sunny friday

I always feel a bit touchy around the many "experimental design for the disabled" sites/blog posts/articles you see around.. but these wheelchair designs, selected by mainstream design site Switched, are pretty fun:


A pink-cushioned bent plywood armchair in the style of the Eames Chair, fitted with matching tires and an ottoman, would be hell on the balance but makes a clear (intended) comment about the difference between brand-name design icons and designs for assistive technologies.

Roll.Charge.Light.Protect offers the idea of wheelchair spokes that light up (charged by the wheels, of course) for safer night wheeling. Definitely reminiscent of the many light-up gizmos commuter cyclists choose for helmet, seat, clothes and fenders.

Switched also did a post of design prototypes for gadgets for visually impaired users - interesting that all but one are for computerized readers/sensors of some kind. Designers often fall into the trap of assuming all assistive devices are extremely high-tech, expensive specialty items, and overlook the everyday technologies everyone uses - wonder what potential any of these have to be integrated into mass-market products, as current screen-readers are - on the iPad, for example..