Footpaths: their use and misuses

My top 5 things six things I wish uprights got about using the footpath:

1. Don’t just stand there – move something. Standing still at the top of kerb ramps instead of moving off it to allow people crossing to safely and legally get off the road. This is not the place to start a meaning of life conversation or adjust your wardrobe. I, like others need a clear metre at the top of the incline to safely complete the crossing process without tipping myself up or collecting your shins. For many of us who have different mobility issues we need to pick a direction of travel and keep moving as much for safety as energy or anything else so abrupt stopping is never polite. It’s like a car slamming on the brakes every 50 metres instead of going say 30 kph with on-coming traffic coming at you on either side. Also if I am obeying the rules of the road and waiting on the kerb ramp with you jay-walking in the opposite direction please don’t climb over my chair to get off the road.. My footplates are part of my personal space.
2. While talking of footpaths they are not the place to mingle with five or six of your friends all looking and talking  inwards. Given I am waist high to most of you it can be very hard to attract your attention to keep moving (see above) and am often stuck yelling at people’s belt loops for some minutes waiting for one of the party to look down. Not everyone can sidle past or tap you somewhere that my grandmother would consider polite. I can’t tap you on the shoulder if I’m three foot tall.
3. Footpaths are still first and foremost designed built and paid for to enable the safe pedestrian movement of all of us. They are not designed to act as a parking lot for prams cars or bikes, a community ashtray, a junk storage zone, a dining room or an extension of your business. While these uses are able to be incorporated in parts and more modern footpathing have integrated these uses, please remember that the narrow footpaths still need to fulfil the movement thing as their primary role.
4. If you are over 12 do as our parents and the law teaches: please walk your pushbike on footpaths. It’s polite, non aggressive and saves kerb ramps for those of us who have need them to get anywhere not just get somewhere quickly. I know you are doing a good thing for the planet and all that, but polite is still polite. You are still a vehicle. You saving carbon by not using your car is great and something I very much support but the energy flow needed to incorporate your riding on the footpath for me is higher I suspect than for most other people (see point regarding committing to a direction of travel) in the other direction in a need for higher concentration, and the kind of stopping and starting of a machine that you are trying to avoid.
5. While we are on a roll here can smokers please refrain from lowering your cigarette and it’s  plume to get me right in the face. Just as you don’t want it right near your eyes when your not smoking it – neither do I. I have even been ashed in my lap or on my hand or chest more than once. It might also be worth noting that this behaviour is not going to be good for any children in the area either.
6. This same idea applies to the swinging of handbags and backpacks in the vicinity  of my head shoulders or back or failing to look in all directions (up/down as well as forward and back when exiting a shop to re-enter a flow on the footpath. Its like entering a flow of car traffic without checking your mirrors. Bumping the back of a wheelchair isn’t like bumping a chair leg.. I can feel it. If checking in all directions before you move seems exhausting my only solace for you is; if we all did it more we’d probably all have to do it less.

The main things I wish that “uprights” understood about footpath/sidewalk  issues are:

• everyone is trying to get somewhere to be with those we love. I know all the stuff about vibrant footpath culture, but we need to be able to get places to enjoy the culture.
• everyone comes in different sizes so please look down as well as behind. It can be humiliating talking to belt loops for 5 minutes.

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There was however a small group of consumers who sought a better way, they were concerned that the pesticides being used on the fruit and vegetables found in our supermarkets might or did cause harm. They sought out organic fruit and vegetables” claiming that at least for them these products were better. These brave individuals were prepared to make choices, difficult choices at times about what they bought, from where and indeed how much they paid. They were prepared to make sacrifices to ensure that they got the products they needed. They spread the word.

Slowly one or two became a few more. Friends cooking for these organic sensitive individuals started choosing organic too and finding it better for them as well. As a result,  behaviours were changed with people being prepared to make the choice, pay the price and look a little harder for the right products. These friends may have initially made these sacrifices out of altruism but eventually “switched” out of interest for themselves and their families and the word spread.

As the word spread demand rose and broadened from the eco-conscious hippies or allergy prone individuals to a more mainstream audience. The economics of supply and demand resulted in a price drop and more suppliers. The early adopters and those that made choices to include them were rewarded with more change left in their pockets as producers scrambled to change their practices and their image to maintain a market share in this new “conscious” economy.

Now we have reached a point were producers, marketers and suppliers of more than just our fruit and veggies clamor to convince us; the everyday consumer of the ecological sensitivity of their products. Everything from toilet paper to coffee, department stores and shopping bags, to cans of tuna labeling everywhere strives to convince us that it too is conscious of the planet, good for us as well as being good for the bottom line. We walk  into the supermarket more aware of our environmental footprint and the calorie count and preservative level of the products we buy as we walk up and down the aisles. We walk out of the supermarket or department store a little more aware of not just the change in our pocket but the change to our bodies and the footprint we leave. We leave the supermarket determined to recycle the plastic bags we are carrying  or with an armful of green bags determined to reuse them again and again.

This is all great and important progress to not only our health and longevity but also the health and longevity of the planet. It didn’t start with legislation. It started with people. Not just the few who needed the organic vegetables, fruit or low allergen soap, but with those who cared for them. Supply only increased when it was more than just those in the immediate circle of those most affected who were demanding it. Not just with their voices. Also in a much more telling gesture, they told us all with their wallets. As a result they, and we are better off.

It might still be easier to grow with pesticides but its not enough for us anymore

Within the disability sector here in Australia we have waited 10 years for the much  anticipated Disability (Access to Premises – Buildings) Standards. The intention of these Standards was to bring the various bits of paper (the Australian Standards for Access and Mobility, the various building codes and the Disability Discrimination Act) into alignment saving the confusion that might have prevented some of the intended implementation. Clearly a step in the right direction will be made with the adoption of these Standards, although when and how much is a question as well. With an aging population who are used to being included and involved I wonder if these steps will be enough to manage the current demand, much less anticipate future demand.

So what of the connection between organic vegetables and the provision of access?  They are both about sustainability. They both need to be a matter of broad public interest, opinion and action before any significant change will occur. A range of people need to choose differently and with their wallets. Once it becomes a matter of money in the banks, businesses will see the value in changing the access to their building.

As several of my high school teachers pointed out legislation must move slower than public opinion to prevent knee-jerk laws and a less stable judiciary. That makes sense. The aging of an active population is however not a question of public opinion. Nor is the intention to provide inclusion and equity a new concept, or a newly embraced one. They are both well recognised, well researched and established understandings.

My friends often have difficulty finding venues to have events they want me at. The assumption that in 2009 no one is allowed to build an inaccessible building or run a discriminatory service is soon dispelled. Unfortunately; as well as being rare, the accessible venues also tend to be the more expensive and more sterile options because it is the larger organisations that are under greater pressure to provide access.

Even when a level of access is said to be provided, equity, independence and dignity may still be unavailable in any of several given moments.  A platform lift that may or may not work and requires the cooperation of another simply because they have the key they use to prevent vandalism or independent use (ironic given the intention of the lift). A single step requiring help every time. Having to seek out a manager — usually male –  to get access to the locked accessible toilet. Waiting an hour for a services that others wait 15 minutes for, like a bus ride. This stuff is all common and recent. Its all roughly bearable too. The experience is also better than it was 15 years ago. But its not equitable either. It’s not as it was intended, and it is still hard.

Change is happening and that is great. The Standards are going to come into effect, and people are understanding the dilemmas and the issues, and are generally more conscious if not more responsive. But without the commercial impetus the changes needed will not come fast enough. It may indeed be too easy for small businesses, schools and other organisations to get granted an exemption to the requirement to provide access. Perhaps though it is also too easy for them to want it. There are very few reasons to want to provide access.

Like with the organic fruit, this is going to take a few brave souls who have no obvious need for ramps, rails, AusLan or Easy English to make some of  their lifestyle choices on the basis of these things, and joining those of us who have to make those choices in rewarding those businesses that do provide access and equity with a little commercial stimulus. We also need to say why we are making the choices, both to show the old businesses we used that there is a cost and the new choice that we make that there is indeed a reward for equity. This may cost us a little more initially but when whole parties get moved because of a single step  businesses will slowly seek out venues that will work for them too and once again legislation will follow demand and we will be ready for those active baby boomers.

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They showed a woman who had collected so many clothes, shoes and other paraphernalia and the compensation of the losing her husband in an accident over 10 years ago. She had de-cluttered and had boxes and boxes of clothes and shoes and whatever else removed from her house.

I have been talking about reinventing myself and simplifying my life for a long time now, and like many others have made several attempts with varying results. However, something in that program today spurred me on to look around and realise that I had way too much stuff. It prompted an energy shift in me. That energy shift resulted in my drafting the following e-mail:

Many of you know that I have a tendency to collect handbags. Until recently, I only had a few. More recently, I’ve started subtly collecting them again and while it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be — I once again have more than I need. I’m going on a simplification drive. The handbags/wallets/bag collection is just a place to start.

Rather than list them all, if you have seen me use a handbag that you would be interested in adopting (free to a good home), please let me know. I’m not entirely sure which ones I am interested in keeping  except:
my patchwork “weekend” bag that my mother  made me and
my butterfly purse.

I’m assuming that I will be  left with a few to choose from and then donate to charity. (WAG I think Liz G) I’m not interested in making money or in using the time to list everything on eBay.

If people want specific descriptions or photos please let me know. Please feel free to pass this on to other folks. With the exception of the big black briefcase they are all in pretty good nick.

So far  I’ve had e-mails  of congratulations but no requests  yet. It’s an interesting experiment working out what you actually need versus what you think you need or enjoy buying.

I’ve also recently been watching a lecture given by an author on the role of the  more creative people in society to assist with climate change and the push the society to adopt sustainable living practices. Sustainability isn’t just climate change, water use, or the use of public transport. In my mind at least it is also about the sustainability of relationships,  the diversity of society, and the  role of our homes to be in those places that rise up to meet us at the end of a hard day. So I’m cleaning my home, my lifestyle my habits as well  as my recycling bins, so that I can be secure and welcome in my own home.

As requested I will put  photos up of the handbags purses and the like.

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