The City & County of San Francisco has made some major improvements since my last two blog entries about the Powell Street Parklets (original story and update).
A lot of the problems stemmed from the tripping hazards caused by the solar panels installed and the barricades separating the parklet from the road traffic was getting bent and damaged because people was sitting on them.
Solar Panels Removed
Originally installed to give power for free wi-fi on Powell Street from Ellis to Geary, the installation was terrible with large metal parts sticking out from the base of the parklet to cause injury to those who tripped over it.
The city has now removed the dangerous hazards from all parklets and now there's new planters the size of garbage cans being installed. Just last week they looked like empty garbage cans, this week it's filled with brand new plants.
Bent Rails Fixed
I just snapped this photo last week Saturday (August 20th) and this one in front of the Walgreens was really bent out of shape. Actually, most of the ones between Ellis and O'Farrell was almost all bent with some of the bolts keeping them together, snapped off. The ones between Geary and O'Farrell last weekend was repaired with new ones and newer types that have a smaller gap, thereby impossible to bend out of shape.
I just snapped this photo a few hours ago while I was eating a sandwich at one of the parklet's tables in front of the same location where that heavily bent rail was last week. The city did a great job to replace ALL the bent rails between Ellis and O'Farrell.
Still... I caught two people starting to destroy our new barricades. People don't respect city property and that makes me grumpy. I wonder why the Union Square ambassadors in red doesn't boot their ass off the rails.
Still... I caught two people starting to destroy our new barricades. People don't respect city property and that makes me grumpy. I wonder why the Union Square ambassadors in red doesn't boot their ass off the rails.
5 comments:
I don't think it's that unreasonable to expect that a metal rail like that out on a public street would be strong enough to not bend when people of normal weight sit on it.
I can certainly see myself leaning up against one of them if the benches were taken. I'd obviously feel bad about it if I sat on it and it broke, but I wouldn't blame myself that much: sturdy looking things on public streets should be durable enough to stand up to an awful lot of abuse.
Absolutely true Zach. These only lasted about a month and a half until they got replaced.
Thicker metal would be better.
I agree with Zach. A few weeks ago I saw someone sitting on the rail, and I assumed it's what it was there for. Now I know :)
They could put bird spikes along the top of these. That would definitely discourage people from sitting on them!
Spikes and such create uninviting urban spaces. A good design should accommodate standard human behavior, rather than forcing people to accommodate to the limitations of a design such as poor choice of materiality in this case.
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