Vancouver bans doorknobs

Not Vancouver, Washington – Vancouver, Canada:

In Vancouver, the doorknob is heading into a setting sun. Its future has been date-marked, legislated out of existence in all future construction, a tip to society’s quest for universal design and the easier-to-use lever handle.
And as it goes in Vancouver, so will it go in B.C., Canada, and perhaps even the world.
Vancouver is the only city in Canada with its own building code, so the changes made here are often chased into the B.C. Building Code and Canada’s National Building Code, and then put into practice in cities and towns across Canada. Vancouver’s influence is wide. And as go the codes, so too goes the construction industry.
Remember the regular toilet? Try to find one. Low-flush is all there is to be had. The incandescent light bulb? Sorry, just energy-saving fluorescent or LED now in most stores.
The change has crept up on us silently and without fanfare. Look at any new condo building. Any new office door. Any door to a public washroom that doesn’t have pneumatic hinges and a push-pad. There they are, these silver, black or brass-coloured levers that can spring a door open with even a forearm when hands are filled.
And, as doorknobs go, so too will go those other ubiquitous knobs, the ones that turn on and off water faucets. For they too are being legislatively upgraded to levers more conducive to the arthritic, gnarled or weakened hands we earn with age.
In September, Vancouver council adopted new amendments to its building code, effective next March, that, among other things, will require lever handles on all doors and lever faucets in all new housing construction.
It is not like the doorknob will disappear entirely. Like many inventions, it will hold its own for a long, long time. There are, after all, a few people who still use typewriters instead of computers. Vancouver’s rule is not retroactive to existing homes. But over time, the effect will become magnified as housing is replaced.
Vancouver has already signalled how serious it was about this change. Last year, before the amendments were proposed, city maintenance workers quietly removed most of the Art Deco doorknobs from the public doors in the heritage-listed City Hall, which was built in 1936. Where once the public, politicians and bureaucrats alike grasped ornate brass knobs with a stylized face embossed with “VCH” — for Vancouver City Hall — they now find utilitarian gold-coloured levers.