Boston to ditch those short-lived plastic handicap-ramp pads at intersections for cast-iron models

Boston has changed its requirements for the "tactile" nubbly pads that let people with sight issues know they're at a the end of a sidewalk to require pads made of cast iron, which it hopes will last longer than the easily shredded plastic ones it now uses, city Streets Chief Jascha Franklin-Hodge said this week.

Franklin-Hodge told a city-council hearing on maintaining city infrastructure that the plastic pads, now installed on thousands of ramps across the city, simply don't hold up in general and that they really don't deal well with a pilot city program to use Bobcats to clear key intersections of snow in the winter. "It has been murder on the tactile pads, because we now have Bobcats driving up and down on them in the winter," he said.

He added that, despite claims from manufacturers, they are not easy to replace, because underlying sidewalk conditions often require additional work before the pads can simply be unscrewed and new ones put down.

Franklin-Hodge was responding to a question from Councilor Kenzie Bok (Back Bay, Bay Village, Beacon Hill, Fenway, Mission Hill), who said the plastic pads drive her, but especially her mobility-impaired constituents nuts, because once they fray, they can easily get jammed into wheelchair wheels.

Franklin-Hodge did not discuss the cost of the new, more permanent pads.

Bok asks the question and Franklin-Hodge answers it: