By: Sarah

Sarah
Mon, 27 Apr 2015 19:49:38 +0000

Spoonydoc – I agree distance is an issue but disagree it is a physical barrier. When it comes to accessing goods and services the distance one travels varies greatly. In actuality the distance to access goods and services begins from where you live and ends where the goods/services physically exist. For example, if your sitting at home on your couch and want a gallon of milk it’s the distance you must travel from your couch until you have the milk in your hand. When you think of distance in this way almost everyone uses a mobility aid (car, bus, train, bike, etc.) to access goods and services. And this is why distance is not a physical barrier but rather a convenience factor. Even if you limit your thinking of distance to a starting point of where you park the distance one travels varies greatly. It varies by distance from parking location to store entrance and distance from store entrance to physical location of the goods/services within the store. For example, the distance to get a gallon of milk in a Walmart Supercenter is much greater than the distance to get a gallon of milk at your local convenience store.

Given the vast differences in distances to access goods and services it is impractical to require parking spaces be within X distance of goods and services. This is true even in the UK where the 50m distance you referred to is not a “must be” but rather a preferable recommendation. Which is really no different than the US where it is also a preferable recommendation but not a law to be close as possible conveniently possible to an accessible entrance.

I completely agree that walking with difficulty is much harder than using a power mobility device like a wheelchair. The distance you can travel in a power chair is only limited by the capacity of your batteries and the barriers of your route. If you cannot load/unload your power chair or a barrier is in your route it doesn’t matter how far your power chair can go. I can fairly confidently say that when you were still walking the number of buildings parking spaces you could access was far greater than the number you can access in a wheelchair. Most homes for example have front steps and are not wheelchair accessible and most parking spaces do not have an access aisle.