I buildings open to the public like office buildings the area under the last bit of a staircase is often blocked off. I’m not talking about a barrier to prevent you from going past the floor with a fire exit. I am not talking about an area under a staircase made into storage.
I am talking about an empty area underneath the portion of the staircase going from the second lowest to the lowest floor. This is often blocked with a railing. Sometimes the railing lets you get part way under, but not all the way. I’ve seen railings that are only six inches or a foot high so they would only serve to trip someone who tried to walk there.
Does anyone have any idea what purpose these serve?
I’ve searched for pictures, but could not find any.
I do know what you mean and I know I’ve seen this on subway platforms in NYC–at least in the past, I haven’t ridden them regularly in over ten years. I couldn’t find any pictures and I don’t know why it’s done.
The idea is to prevent people from walking into an area where they would bonk their head on the underside of the steps. People commonly look down when walking to keep from tripping, but rarely look up.
I’m sure there are now codes for the height of railings and 6" is well below code. I could see how this would have been done several decades ago.
The modern building I’ve seen put something like a fountain or a planter box under the staircase to keep people from walking into the steps.
For a staircase used for fire escape, the intent of the railings is to guide people who can’t see in the smoke. They’ve been going around and around down some number of flights and when they get to the bottom there’s no guarantee they know this is the bottom floor. The railings prevent them from trying to go under the last set of stairs and bash their head on the descending overhead. Instead the change when they encounter the unexpected railing should signa them to start feeling for a door.
For non-fire escape stairs it simple becomes a convention. The regulations aren’t written that precisely, so the railings are installed anyway.
There are 6 inch railings in the building I work in which is less than a year old so there’s no new code in CT at least.
That was my first thought, but the railings are often set back under the stairs so you’d go partway in and have to turn around – a bad design for a fire escape. And a 6 inch railing in a smoke filled stairway seems more likely to trip someone than to stop them. Also in my new building these are at the basement level. The first floor, which is the escape level, actually has a gate across the stairway you need to open to go further down.
The railings are so low they’re easy to step over (if you see them) about the only thing they do is prevent a wheeled cart from going under the stairs. Maybe they’re to prevent janitors from storing equipment there rather than where it belongs, though that seems like overkill to just enforcing a policy.
Sorry for the flip response. Apparently these barriers are short by design because of the way these canes are used. When I worked at the local AFB as a carpenter, we did a bit of ADA retrofitting, but never added a barrier like that in a stairwell
Of course, they never seemed to care much about fire codes either…
Well the description of the ones right down under the lowest steps make it sound like its to stop a blind person who is crawling along from sticking his head out and getting it stood on by someone walking on the stairs…
