I sprained my ankle last weekend, and this week I viscerally understand a perspective that I’ve heard in discussions about planning for the local downtown.
As soon as I was able walk to the driveway with crutches, I arranged to swap my stick-shift car for an automatic (since the clutch requires a working ankle). The car provides welcome mobility. I can get to Peets or Starbucks for coffee, a quarter-mile trip that I usually bike. I can’t move fast or go far, so I need a parking spot very close to I’m going. If I have two errands a few blocks away, I need to get back in the car and drive. A business is more appealing if it has immediate parking. I’m using a car as a large, gasoline-powered wheelchair, and it’s marvelous.
The thing is, I hear this perspective about the need for adjacent parking from people who do not have obvious mobility impairments. Perhaps some have nonvisible disabilities, and if so I hope they have medical placards or plates that allow them to park a car right in front of the places they are going. The ADA requires access for people with mobility impairments, and that access should be protected with vigilance and used by those who need it.
But there are clearly otherwise healthy individuals who use their automobile as a large, gasoline-powered wheelchair as a matter of course. Trips that are a half-mile, or a mile or two. If there are two or three errands a few blocks away, they prefer to get back in the car and drive. If car parking is a block away, that is intolerable, and it is better to drive 30 minutes to find free parking than to walk for a block or two.
Do people have a level of physical fitness so low that walking a block or two feels like running a marathon? Or is moving for a practical purpose horribly unwelcome, because it takes time away from time spend exercising indoors jogging on a treadmill or taking a spin class?
I have a lot of respect for people who use cars and parking for mobility assistance because of need. I have a lot less respect for people who use their car as a wheelchair by choice, and to protect that personal choice want to control land use in our cities for everyone, taking valuable space away from greenery, walking and bike, to provide enough car parking so healthy people don’t need to walk.