Why now? I don't know much about disability and design, but this may be a metaphor for how we think about people with opposing viewpoints. Often people with different opinions are looking at the same thing in the same way, but with a different base experience.

This is meant to relate to the reader through pathos. Who hasn't wished that some problem they have just magically went away?

An appeal to logic. It's pretty well known that not all spaces are designed for people with disabilities.

The use of pictures is helpful and using words such as vibrant and technicolor evokes childhood joy.

I also noticed the indented nubs on the concrete portion and the blocks in the middle of the center railings. These are presumably to prevent skaters from grinding, but somehow, the skaters still found a way around this.

An appeal to ethos. Researchers tend to be experts in their fields.

As with the hospital entrance, Klemin relates the ramp to skating and skaters' creativity.

This rhetorical appeal is likely intended to bring some chaos into the mix

Descriptive writing helps the reader relate to the situation. Using the word exhaust rather than tired adds a more negative feel to appeal to pathos.

Jeremy Klemin is an author and translator who is currently working on writing a book about disabilities and skateboarding. Based on the title, he has experience with disabilities through his parents.

NYT and NYT online are well-respected left-center publications. They are known for their factual reporting and variety of topics. The NYT op-eds are known to lean a little more left than NYT news, mostly due to editorial topic selection. This leads me to believe that the intended audience is the average American, particularly those with a left lean. The author writes in relatively simple terms that are easily read by the audience.