It was fun to read this morning about the project to seed our parks with glass birds in a kind of treasure hunt.
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Mostly that will be fun for people and a kind of programming for more activity in parks.
But it's totally framed up under an implied autoism. It's a drive-to activity, something that will induce people to drive around to all the parks on the hunt.
There is this concession, "alternating between parks in different parts of the city will also open up the free activity to people unable to travel far."
But that frames not having a car and not being able to travel far as a disability!
The project's framing should be flipped. People should be discouraged from driving far, that should not be understood as a norm, and instead people should be encouraged to walk or bike to their neighborhood park. Proximity and walkability should be the center!
The focus should be on the neighborhood and that kind of hyper-localism, and not on driving all over to visit distant parks.
This is a kind of induced demand for driving, cuts against our recent planning efforts, and is something we should reconsider in light of our climate plans and needs.
1 comment:
I don't know about the concept of driving to parks as a whole, but I know that the two parks in ELNA, both are highly used by people on foot or bikes. Weather Street Park is close to several low-income apartment complexes and a retirement home. People can see the park from the street. People walk! But there is a small parking area and quite easy to park on the street. Luckily it is not used by the homeless.
And Royal Oaks is so embedded in the neighborhood that you can almost not know where it is unless you live right next to it. Few people drive to it though. There is essentially no parking. You can get maybe a few cars on the deadend street, but most people walk there with their dogs or kids ride their bikes. Royal Oaks is not used as much as Weather Street due to low visibility and fear of crime.
Salem has 90 parks, and some more work needs to be done with Neighborhood Associations on how to make them more used. Im not sure this bird project is that tool
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