![]() ![]() Worcester County was formed from the eastern portion of colonial Hampshire County, the western portion of the original Middlesex County and the extreme western portion of the original Suffolk County. ( July 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. A city doesn’t warrant the term “community” if one of every ten members can’t get around.This section does not cite any sources. It represents a way to make neighborhoods more enjoyable for the young and healthy while squeezing out the aging and disabled. But increasingly fewer places to park cars (and hence fewer ADA-accessible parking spaces), diminishing budgets for reliable and safe mass transit, and ever-higher density living with stairs everywhere (scratch those expensive elevators)-to me, that doesn’t represent progress. Seattle, after all, was among the first cities to attempt “Car-Free Days” and “Bicycle Sundays” that banned cars from many of our city streets. ![]() It’s tempting to look at a city like mine and see only gestures in the right environmental direction. We don’t want to expose ourselves to unnecessary risks by forging ahead on foot, and the more social judgment that comes with driving, the worse we feel about ourselves when we take our wheels out. The more walking takes a central role in our community life, the more isolated those of us with limitations become. When you look up and down a city street at everybody who’s enjoying a walkable neighborhood, where’s that one person in every ten who’s struggling to get where she’s going? You might not see her-she might well be staying home. There are 19 million of us in the U.S.-that’s over 10% of the population-who report mobility limitations. Women are disproportionally affected, as are African Americans and older adults. My mobility issues are by no means an isolated case. But I refuse to believe that I owe it to the polar bears to struggle along on foot everywhere I have to go. I don’t dump pesticides into the watershed or toss garbage off local bridges. Now, I’m not a total jerk when it comes to the environment-I don’t go around using plastic shopping bags that I then stuff down the blowholes of orcas off the coast. So when I hear people extol the virtues of walking everywhere and the environmental benefits of “going carless” ( think of the carbon emissions! The air quality!) I smile amenably while I imagine shooting lasers out of my eyeballs. Those who need scooters, wheelchairs, or other assistive devices to get around have an even more impressive gauntlet to run every day. This, of course, is me speaking as a person who’s able to walk. And when walking increases my risk of falling, as it often does, that’s downright dangerous. Muscular weakness means that, even if I get where I’m going, I won’t necessarily be able to get back. Add mobility issues to the mix and you’ve got a walkable city that excludes those who can’t walk.īecause I move at a glacial pace, the fact that I can walk somewhere doesn’t mean that it’s remotely worth my while to do so-it might take me two, maybe three times longer than it takes an average, able-bodied person to cover the same amount of ground. This is a place where, if somebody isn’t mowing you down with a bike, there’s bound to be construction that forces you into the road, or tree roots and jagged concrete that can trip even the most conscientious pedestrian. This is just life in the United States’ 6th “most walkable” city. Never mind the fact that I was obviously having difficulty getting where I was going and could have used a little space. Never mind that riding a bike is not what a side walk is for. “And I’m just trying to ride my bike on the sidewalk!” “Look,” I told the guy, “I’m just trying to cross the street!” There was no way I was making the light, and I was unamused. The fact that one of my feet doesn’t entirely lift up makes me veer off to the right at times, and in trying to out-maneuver a guy bouncing about on a moving heap of metal, I ended up somewhere between the light post and the local weekly paper’s news stand. I tried to skirt around him, but I’m not all that great with my own balance. (I’ve asked around, and apparently the goal of the exercise is to “work on balancing” by heaving around in this way.) Just as the signal finally turned my way and I began my slow progresses from curb to street, a Typical Seattle Biker-white man, brown beard, tight shorts, pointy helmet-came rolling up the curb cut in front of me. He then did what Typical Seattle Bikers do: that unnamable thing of jerking the bike’s handlebars back and forth and bouncing the wheel about. Some weeks ago, I was late for a meeting and waiting at a crosswalk, impatient with the incredibly long red light. Kelly Davio’s previous Waiting Room columns for The Butter can be found here. ![]()
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