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Disabled artist gets down on knees and crawls across Mattapan Square to highlight the difficulties the disabled face at many Boston intersections
By adamg on Fri, 08/18/2023 - 8:49am
The Dorchester Reporter profiles Ellice Patterson, an artist in residence at the Boston Transportation Department whose crawl was "aimed at opening eyes about the challenges within the ongoing Mattapan Square Transportation Action Plan." It took her 45 minutes to almost circumnavigate the complex intersection.
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Brilliant!
Just imagining this had a huge impact on me.
She’s doing us all good. Anyone can become permanently or temporarily disabled mobility-wise at any time in our lives. And we need our disabled people to be able to get around and do good things like artist, Ellice Patterson, does.
Her bruised knees!
Only the bravest of the brave …
… would crawl across a Boston street and risk becoming roadkill.
Capitol Crawl-1990
I'm glad she did this, I hope it attracts the attention that its due. It reminded me immediately of this. https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/capitol-crawl-for-ADA/
Imagine!
Folks are still crawling for fair treatment and equal representation.
The Italians say, “Qui va piano, va lontano*” but this snail’s pace is ridiculous.
*Slow and steady wins the course
As a reminder
This is what that shithole of an "intersection" looks like:
https://goo.gl/maps/hAzcTGH1gEZjTjZ76
Wow
So it looks like. if you're on the southwest corner of that intersection, and want to go to the T stop across the street, you've gotta cross 6 streets. I wonder why there's no crosswalk there.
Pedestrians have the right of way ….
… everywhere in Boston streets. Something some drivers and cyclists like to forget.
Crosswalks, even those with traffic lights, are no guarantee of safety. In fact they are often in the most dangerous part of the street for crossing as more pedestrians are injured or killed while in a crosswalk than in any other part of the street.
Any street savvy dog, if there are any free range dogs still operating, can tell you jay walking in the middle of a block is safest place to cross as opposed to at intersections.
I don’t know if this applies to crawling across the street though.
You missed my point
I'm not trying to ban pedestrians from crossing there, I'm lamenting the fact that the safest, marked way across the intersection is designed to force such a circuitous route
Medford's Wellington Circle Says
Hold my beer
This area has no shortage of intersections in which the designers could not comprehend the concept of a person attempt to cross on foot (or knee).
Can't even complete the full circle
Definitely worth reading the article.