The enabling technology of curb cuts
24/09/2012 § 2 Comments
Let me sing the praises of curb cuts*.
These gentle ramps at street corners are a wonderful invention. Coupled with access ramps at public buildings and major structures, they provide a network of smooth, unstepped surface.
Baby buggies roll effortlessly through intersections and entryways. Motorised scooters scuttle along footpaths for miles.
Luggage has evolved wheels, like fish learning to walk on land. No longer do we heave our bags around. I can still feel the handles of my parents’ grey American Tourister suitcases compressing as they dug into my fingers. Now, our bags are trolleys and skateboards, rolling along with us like well-trained pets.
I remember the battles over curb cuts. We, the able-bodied majority, were being made to pay obscene amounts of money just so a few broken bodies could use their wheelchairs. Didn’t they get enough help already?!
But the steppists were unconvincing and the rampists won.
And everyone bought rolling luggage. They dragged their bags up and down ‘wheelchair’ ramps and along ‘disabled’ accessways. They liked the ease and convenience, the lack of strain on traveling muscle and bone.
The wheel-makers — the caster caste — flourished. They experimented — new materials, new bearings, new swivels! The luggage rolled ever-more smoothly. Friction shrank before the onslaught of innovation.
Now we glide along, oblivious to the rancorous step-change that made it all possible.
*I do realise that the NZ spelling is ‘kerb’, but using it removes the visual symmetry from the US spelling.