All over my city crews are installing bright yellow ramps with little bumps. Are these a huge improvement, or is it a make-work project?
Like this?
They are an improvement; they’re called “tactile paving,” and along with the bright color, they alert visually-impaired people that they are approaching a road crossing.
They installed similar “bumpy” areas on the edges of train platforms at Chicago Union Station a while back, again, to alert the visually-impaired that they are nearing a drop-off.
Ah! I only looked at it from a traction standpoint. I didn’t even consider the color being a help in that regard.
That’s good. When will something be done for visually-impaired pedestrians?
This would be where I relate that, when I was a child, my father convinced me that the “rumble strips” in the road pavement leading up to the toll booths on the Illinois Tollway were there so blind drivers knew that they needed to stop and pay the toll.
And once you realised how easy it was to convince someone with a plausible story, you went into advertising? 
That’s the part I don’t say out loud. 
No matter what people think, no city can afford a make-work program these days. It takes years of planning and persuasion to get the money to do something absolutely vital. And that has to pass several planning boards, zoning boards, and environmental reviews. Make-work is a concept from the days of political bosses.
That makes sense. We’ve just had a change in mayors, so I was feeling cynical.
I’ve been to Japan ten times since 2010, and have yet to encounter a train platform or street corner that doesn’t have these things marking the edge of a sidewalk/platform. The ones with the bars are also found in just about every train station hallway and also on long public sidewalk runs. If you’ve got blurry vision, you can still make out the yellow tiles; if you’ve got no vision, your cane and your feet can usually identify the textured tiles compared to what’s around them.
While I fully support this accommodation for visually impaired pedestrians, they do make my task of dragging a large, wheeled suitcase down the sidewalk to/from my hotel a little more unpleasant; the wheels make a lot of noise rattling over those bumps, and the suitcase gets somewhat more difficult to control.
Did he also tell you why they have Braille markings on drive-up ATMs?
He likely would have, if ATMs were in wide use by then (this was c. 1972).
This seems to imply you still think the texture is for traction. Maybe I misunderstand you, but just in case …
The texture is not about traction in the slightest.
it’s about being a surface that feels unmistakably distinct under wheels, feet, or a cane that warns someone in a chair or with bad eyesight, bad hearing, or simply not paying attention that they are about to enter a road containing cars, trucks, busses, etc.
Even as a non-visually-impaired person I like having those textured yellow strips at edges of curbs, train platforms, etc. Feels more secure somehow.
Seriously, I read an interview where a long distance truck driver said the rumble strips section along the side of the highway helped him “rest his eyes” on long straight roads. He would steer away from the side of the road and then slightly toward it, then when he hit the rumbling, steer out and back again, with his eyes closed.
I always assumed the bumps were to slow down wheelchairs that might run away a bit down the ramp off the sidewalk; with the added bonus of messing up skateboarders and rollerbladers.
I’ve heard reports that people in wheelchairs and others with mobility issues hate those things precisely because they offer less traction. They find them slippery.
Some public buildings do something similar for stairs. The carpet color on the top or bottom steps is different than the rest of the stairs.
I did initially think that that was the advantage they offered, but this thread has taught me that I was quite wrong. I can even imagine how they would be useful as a reminder for people too enraptured by their phones as well, though obviously that’s an unintended use.
That’s a problem with certain “accommodations” ( not certain if that’s really the right word) - something that’s helpful to the visually impaired causes problems for the mobility impaired or vice-versa. I recall that part of the reason for the bumps at sidewalk ramps is because once the ramps were placed at intersections ( which helped those with mobility issues ) they caused problems for the visually impaired who used canes, as the prior to the ramps, they could distinguish the sidewalk from the street with the cane but the ramps made that impossible…