This weird scene is a switchback on Chattanooga's riverfront trail. To get down the hill, you have to go through roughly seventeen zigs and zags on a concrete ramp that must have cost at least a quarter of million dollars to construct. Under the new regime of the Americans with Disabilities Act, all public facilities must be designed for wheelchair access. The problem is there's no alternative direct route -- i.e. stairs -- for normally-abled people. What's more, the wheelchair ramp is so torturous that it is hard to imagine anyone in a wheelchair actually using it. Are we carrying good intentions a little too far?

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Copyright © 1999 James Howard Kunstler