For real though the stairs dude built are…
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Well, not great. It does however make a solid point about the bidding process and how cities and contractors approach it. Many of the regulations involving something even as ‘simple’ as a set of stairs are actually in place for a reason, ambulance chasing notwithstanding. Some sort of rule encouraging neighborhood groups to take on small projects like this could be great, provided all the bases are covered. Likely would need a member of the group to be a CCB, and the city would need to come up with some sort of inspection scheme so it could be insured. Reminds me a little of Portland’s anarchist pothole repair.
Also, for the record, if you’ve never built stairs, it’s a more difficult task than you think…
I am really not qualified to say but I suspect that would be difficult on this slope.
It is a lot steeper than the one shown in Max_Blancke’s picture and I suspect it would be difficult to both sink the timbers into the ground securely enough and have room to level the ground to form a terrace.
I am somewhat qualified. It certainly would be easier to build for longevity than the simple stringer/tread setup this guy used, which will become rickety in no time flat (ack ack ack.) The other way would be concrete, which would be significantly more work and expense.
Generally speaking, in contracts like this the design is one of the things that is tendered for.
In other words, a business probably suggested the design not the ‘bureaucracy’. Businesses will also have suggested the cost. Lovely, lovely free enterprise.
BTW, I love the way ‘bureaucracy’ is used. Bureaucrats are faceless, corrupt, incompetent if not actually malicious figures - rather than say, your neighbour Fred who works in the Parks department or organises your rubbish collection.
You can drill and stake the timbers into the ground. But that is just an example of a cheap system in wide use. This is a problem that people have been finding practical solutions to for thousands of years. I suspect that part of the problem is that such decisions are being made by people with very little knowledge of the methods people use to safely go down a hill, and instead know a great deal about filling out spreadsheets.
It is a life strategy, really. I don’t like the guy’s construction skills, but his attitude is admirable.
One time, I was on a military cargo ship, and we got a call from a unit in the field that they needed to replace the recoil piston on a large howitzer. We were carrying those guns deep below decks. I had a meeting with Navy Officers and my USMC NCO. When the problem was described, the Naval Officer started listing the different reasons why it could not be done. He went on and on, and eventually I sent the NCO to get some men and meet me in the hold. Two hours later, using chainhoists and pure will, my troops had the very large and heavy part off of the stored gun, up a series of ladders, and up on the helo deck, waiting for the helicopter to come get the part. As far as I know, the Navy was still explaining the prohibitive difficulties of such a complex job when the part was in the air on the way to the field. But that is illustrative of differing institutional attitudes towards problem solving. When you tell a Marine NCO that a problem needs to be solved, there is an almost zero chance that he is going to come back and explain to you that it cannot be done.
If the Toronto parks people were motivated to put stairs on that hillside, I bet it would have already happened. Quickly, safely, and to code.
No worries. You can disagree with me and I won’t be offended. Especially you as you’re a long-standing member * who I know to debate in good faith.
Not any public project, just ones that cost 118 times as much as they need to. If the cost were a couple thousand I’d assume regulatory overhead which is a double-edged sword, but something for I’m generally in favor as safety is important in public engineering. At $65k for a staircase, even allowing for gross inefficiencies and cost overruns, I’d literally feel safe betting money someone is getting kickbacks. I could be wrong in this case, but I doubt it. Not all local politicians are crooks, but there’s always some local politician getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar; I’ve seen it first hand in cities I’ve lived in. When you put people who pursue power as a career in an opaque position where they can obtain ill-gotten gains with minimal risk of oversight, some of them are going to steal from the coffers. 65k for a staircase is as red a flag is red flags get IMO.
ETA: It’s also an easy issue to settle. All the city has to do is publish itemized invoice(s) as PDFs on their website so citizens can compare the declared costs to normal going rates and see if there even close to each other. I don’t know about Canada, but this is virtually never done in the US. If the information is available, citizens typically have to submit an FOIA request to get a hold of it.
If the city fucks something up (such as your home’s connections to municipal plumbing) that ends up costing you damage, they absolutely require the citizen submit an itemized invoice to the city for reimbursement. But they’re fine spending tax money without deigning to tell their constituents where it all goes.
If they won’t be transparent, why should people trust these sorts of estimates?
*Apologies, I confused you with another commenter. Definitely still believe you’re debating in good faith and glad to have the discussion; I just was thinking of someone else.
I suspect the $65k figure is their way of saying that they don’t want to do it. I don’t know when those community gardens began, but they’ve probably been trying very hard to ignore the problem for years as the vegetation cover on the hill was worn away, the soil washed away, and the rocks shifted down-slope.
Agreed on all points, including the dudes stairs- yikes.
And for the record, yup, I build things for a living. And it is partly because of that that I feel like there should be a system allowing/supporting projects like his. There are plenty of reasonably competent people around, and with the right guidance, not only could some low stakes projects get taken care of, the city might save some money, along with some community building as well. I can see pitfalls in a system like this (incomplete projects, neighbor infighting, total incompetence, etc) but I think in most cases it could be a cool thing.
That said, it might be difficult to justify on the city’s part for the sheer lack of projects of this scale. How many people know of a stairway needing built nearby?
Because it’s already an embankment, holding the parking lot in place. To alter that slope will weaken the parking lot and require an expensive retaining wall. Or many tons more dirt. The solution to people getting down that slope is much simpler: build stairs. Wait, some guy already did! Doh!
This is a straw man argument. People on wheels already have to go around. There really isn’t any way around that fact, unless the embankment is altered in some way, which makes the project 100x more expensive.
The rest of this, I’m not even going to respond to. Clearly you are against the DIY approach; I am for it. Agree to disagree. Moving on.
There have been repeated, correct arguments all through this thread as to why the stairs he built are garbage not equivalent to proper construction and why the DIY approach is a bad option, but “lalalalalal government bad” I guess.
Don’t forget that all it takes is one $100,000.00 lawsuit from someone who fell down the stairs, to make people realize that spending the $65k would have been cheaper.
Clarification-I’m not taking a position. I’m just pointing out the possibilities.
