From What is a Walkable city:
These spaces incorporate elements like seating areas, public art installations, water features, and greenery, enhancing the overall aesthetic appeal and providing a respite from the built environment.
and
Ample green spaces, street trees, and seating areas provide comfortable resting spots and encourage people to enjoy their surroundings.
So… yes? Like I know it might be cathartic to someone driving-by (heh) the concept, but seating is very much in the design of walkable cities.
I think their point is that even in situations that able bodied people might consider to have “ample seating,” it may not be enough for those with disabilities. 3 minutes of walking between benches, I’d say, would probably be considered pretty ample seating by most city planners. It would be no where near enough for my dad, or for my mom before she went full time in the wheelchair. One solution to this could be something along the lines of the little carts they have at Walmart, but like, owned by the city and able to be checked out for free, combined with some people with mobility issues actually getting a say in how the city is planned out, and where the ramps and stuff are for the sidewalks.
No, we absolutely don’t need to inundate every city with eight benches per block. (Two per side.)
There’s a point at which you have to meet halfway, and if you can’t walk for five minutes straight you should probably be in a walker or wheelchair.
In general I agree that cities need to be more walkable, and that includes seating. But the “some people can’t walk three minutes” idea needs to go.
I’m a part time wheelchair user with some walking ability and there are a lot of spaces in my city that are too inaccessible for me to use. I don’t mean internal space, I mean the built environment of the city itself. There’s one route which, if I’m walking, is 0.2 miles. If I’m in my wheelchair, it’s just under 0.6 because I have to take a weird route that doubles back on myself, because city designers put little ledges everywhere without considering how mobility aid users can be impacted
Of course you’re right to highlight that a properly supportive and inclusive world requires more components than just modifications to the built environment, but I think that making accessible spaces needs to be in people’s minds from the get go, and that “some people can’t walk three minutes” is a useful idea for this.
Yeah, totally unreasonable for people to have seating options. I mean the downsides are just so numerous…
