Community Building Tip: Car-Free

[ysabetwordsmith]

For my current set of tips, I'm using the list "101 Small Ways You Can Improve Your City.

44. Organize a local car-free day. Every September 22 cities around the world participate in a global Car-Free Day, showcasing the possibilities of a more progressive commute and the advantages of walkable streets and biking infrastructure. Want to be inspired? Check out 14 beautiful car-free cities.

Regrettably, neither of the sites seemed to say anything about accessibility.  Now if you're blind, not worrying about getting run over by a car could be a great thing.  But for anyone with mobility issues, more often than not "car-free" might as well be "on the Moon."  And it's not like we don't have solutions for that, I just didn't see anyone advertising things like palanquins for places where wheelchairs can't easily go.  So if you're lobbying for car-free areas, remember to make them accessible to everyone.  Even normally able-bodied people can be screwed the moment they break a foot, get pregnant, or have a baby carriage to push.

Comments

Re: Mobility Impairment

[ysabetwordsmith]

Exactly! That's not just sociology, it's physics. Perimeter-to-center is a critical concern for everything from wheelchairs to chilled-food-travel to firetrucks and ambulances. For fucksake, if someone has a heart attack at the center of the event, how far must the EMTs run with the stretcher to fetch the victim and then run back to reach the ambulance?

Some examples:

A classic "ribbon" layout with a long event between a park (closed to traffic) and what look like parking garages or lots. You simply put the vehicle traffic on the paved side and foot traffic on the grass side, and everyone can reach most or all the stuff with minimal cross-traffic. That site is super well designed for inclusivity, and aside from the hardscaping that also shows in all the dingbats for everything from ADA seating to water stations. \o/

More or less a cross shape cutting a big blob into little blobs, accessible if function and ADA vehicles can use the roads.

Lobes break up the blob, but the middle trails may not be as accessible.

What the fuck were they even thinking?

Really, studying physics and biology can teach you a LOT about urban design and event planning. Nature uses the same systems because they work. Why reinvent the wheel when you can piggyback on millions of years of evolution? A traditional neighborhood design has kind of a fractal pattern with busy wide streets, medium streets, and slow narrow streets -- as opposed to the stupid and inefficient suburban design.

Re: Mobility Impairment

[(Anonymous)]

And thawing or cooking meat...

Monoculture design?

I mean, if you can leave 'car spacing' down the middle of a street fair you coud have people step back, as demonstrated by these nice protesters:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cwFHZbRZZuQ

Re: Mobility Impairment

[thnidu]

What the fuck were they even thinking?

¿¿¿"Preferred" and "VIP" and "Staff" and "Vendor Sponsor" parking, but no Handicapped parking???

Re: Mobility Impairment

[ysabetwordsmith]

I hadn't even gotten far enough to notice that, I was mainly looking at large-scale geometry of event layouts.

Based on your further observations, they may have been thinking "Let's keep the crips out." >_<

I stumbled across one store where absolutely every garment had some weird, aggravating feature like scratchy fabric, lace panels, fashion seams, etc. How do you keep freaks out? Make products they can't stand to touch. I'm not even sure it was deliberate, but it was very thorough. Most places only have a high percentage, not totality.

Re: Mobility Impairment

[fianna9]

Handicapped parking appears to be hiding back in the Preferred parking. behind the VIP and Vendor Sponsor parking. Good luck finding it.

Good luck getting from there to the bathrooms.

they also misspelled parking in the "Handicapped Parkiing Area" of the map legend.