Welcome to gender equity in civil engineering and urban development.

It's official! La Sombrita, our shade and lighting pilot for the @LADOTofficial Gender Equity Action Plan, was unveiled this morning pic.twitter.com/cqX1lFePzo

— Kounkuey [KDI] (@Kounkuey) May 18, 2023

The fuck is that?

The news will tell us.

LADOT introduces new solar-powered bus shelters that cast shadow

A bus stop at the intersection of 3rd Street and Union Avenue is the site of an ambitious new pilot program to bring shade, lighting and safety to female transit riders.

On Thursday, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation unveiled its new La Sombrita, or little shade, in four LA neighborhoods.

Designed by and for female bus riders, the unassuming blue metal structures provide lighting at night and shade during the day, casting a shadow that elongates enough during some times of day to provide shade to nearby bus benches in addition to the person standing directly beneath it.

“At many stops in my neighborhood, there isn’t any area where you feel safe waiting for the bus,” Watts resident, and public transit rider, Kiana Stepney said at La Sombrita’s unveiling Thursday in Westlake. “La Sombrita will make waiting for the bus at night safer and more comfortable during hot days.”

Because the shelters are attached to pre-existing LADOT signs, they do not require costly new infrastructure or permitting. Because they are small, they also fit on narrow sidewalks that aren’t able to accommodate larger shelters.

“The lack of essential amenities like shade and lighting isn’t just a simple inconvenience. For women and gender minorities — half of our population — it can change the trajectory of their lives,” said Chelina Odbert, founding principal of the Kounkuey Design Initiative, which developed the structures with input from female transit riders.

Women who do not feel safe might forgo public transportation and the opportunities that come along with being able to travel outside their immediate areas, she said.

Fucking hell…

This reads like a parody.  “Standing in line for a bus sucks, women and minorities hardest hit.”

Here’s a picture of that thing:

First of all, that piece of shit cost only $10,000?

Wow, did they over pay.

But when you look at it in relation to the preexisting bus stop benches, at what time of day and year does it cast a shadow that covers them?

Did the diverse group of women who designed that forget that in the northern hemisphere, shadows are long in winter and short in summer?

So if you’re a woman who wants to sit in the shade at any time of the day except those certain hours. You’re just fucked.

What about things other than sun, like rain?  I guess women are fine to stand in the rain.

What about men?  Are men not allowed to stand in the women’s shade?

I suspect that there are a lot of better designs for more useful shade cover that could be built for $10,000, or less, but that’s just me thinking like a straight white male engineer.

This is an embarrassing failure of design that only points out that design by diversity committee is the worst way to do anything.

I just can’t wait until that diversity committee builds an overpass for women.  There will be casualties.