Hey, there! Log in / Register

Boston's crumbling sidewalks

WBZ stumbles across all the complaints filed with the city over injuries caused by tripping over bad sidewalks.

Neighborhoods: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

World class, Baby!!!

up
Voting closed 0

down the South Boston Waterfront. No potholes either.

up
Voting closed 0

Like the places where the state troopers and valets commandeer the bike lanes, crosswalks and sidewalks for their special parking activities.

I don't know why that valet service on Seaport Boulevard is even allowed to operate given that they clearly do not stay in their appointed lane and store cars everywhere but the garage where they are supposed to put them.

up
Voting closed 0

the City removes the snow from the streets and sidewalks. You wouldn’t even know it snowed in the Seaport. Meanwhile in the real neighborhoods of Boston you deal with mounds of dirty snowbanks.

up
Voting closed 0

Not due to a lack of sidewalk maintenance, but due to a design flaw. Three weeks ago tonight I was walking home on East Brookline St by Franklin Square Park when stepped in a soft gap just off the edge sidewalk and caught my foot under the fence surrounding the park. My foot was hooked under the fence, but I kept going and fell. I got up, brushed myself off, tended to what I thought was a dislocated kneecap and continued towards home. I got about 100 feet and fell again and couldn't get up. After I called 911, Boston EMS came and took me to BMC, where they found that I had ruptured the patellar tendons in both knees (the ones that hold your kneecaps down so that you can walk without your legs bending the wrong way), that required emergency surgery and resulted in five days at Boston Medical Center, another eight days at the New England Rehabilitation Hospital in Woburn, and then another six days at my parents' house in Burlington. I returned home to my apartment this past Thursday, where I am convalescing until I finish home physical and occupational therapy and can get rid of the Bledsoe braces that have had my legs locked in extension since I was admitted to the ER. I know it's a design flaw because the fences surrounding both Blackstone and Franklin Squares have either concrete or macadam pads underneath them, except on the section along East Brookline St, where the sidewalk edge (which stops several inches short of the fence), plus soft ground underneath the fence equals a serious tripping hazard -I had the chance to inspect it yesterday when hobbling home from a doctor's appointment. I had forgotten until after my surgery that I had an almost identical fall several months ago along the same section of fence and thought at the time "jeez, that's a hazard, someone's going to get really hurt sometime". Needless to say I reported the hazard to 311, who responded saying that the engineering department at Parks and Rec will be checking it out. I am going to follow up with my city councillors to make sure that the risk there is eliminated. I am lucky that I have great health insurance (thanks SEIU!!) and am thankful that I bought the supplemental accident and temporary disability insurance offered at work, otherwise I would be screwed.

up
Voting closed 0

There's this plasticy material that they use to stripe crosswalks sometimes (because painting is hard I guess), and when it's wet, that stuff is slick as snot on a doorknob. I slipped on one of those and landed hard on one knee. It resulted in a lasting injury.

up
Voting closed 0

Thermoplastic. Used instead of paint primarily because it lasts years instead of months, is reflective, and sets in minutes, instead of the hours it can take paint to dry.

When first used it was observed to be slippery. To combat this, glass beads are added to it in a quantity such that it has a similar amount of friction as asphalt. Bare asphalt and painted asphalt are also slippery when wet. Thermoplastic shouldn't be significantly more slippery than either when wet.

up
Voting closed 0