Although the “open streets” move­ment brought a new sense of free­dom to many pedes­tri­ans, peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties have found them­selves run­ning up against a new set of obsta­cles. Accord­ing to Pene­liope Richards, a writer with cere­bral pal­sy, “[p]lenty of out­door din­ing setups act as side­walk obsta­cle cours­es.” As John Suri­co reports in Bloomberg City­Lab, “[n]avigating com­mer­cial stretch­es packed of streater­ies, parklets and oth­er Covid adap­ta­tions has often exac­er­bat­ed the exist­ing chal­lenges faced by wheel­chair users and oth­ers with mobil­i­ty impair­ments.”

While parklets and out­door seat­ing pro­grams were designed to pro­vide more pub­lic space, “as many of these street changes are being made per­ma­nent, advo­cates are fight­ing to ensure that that space is expand­ed equi­tably.” Eman Rimawi, an orga­niz­er for New York Lawyers for the Pub­lic Inter­est, says cities should be more proac­tive in enforc­ing ADA com­pli­ance and fig­ur­ing out where parklets and out­door seat­ing can go with­out pos­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty prob­lems. “On streets with exten­sive out­door din­ing — now made per­ma­nent by City Hall — plan­ners should ana­lyze where side­walks can safe­ly be expand­ed. The park­ing-spot parklets, she said, open up the pos­si­bil­i­ty of con­vert­ing even more street space to pedes­tri­an usage,” cre­at­ing more pub­lic space with­out crowd­ing the city’s side­walks. 

Ensur­ing acces­si­bil­i­ty also helps increase vis­i­bil­i­ty for peo­ple of all abil­i­ties, says Alan Ben­son, a wheel­chair user in Lon­don. Inclu­sion, he says “means allow­ing every­one to par­tic­i­pate in urban soci­ety, so every­one else notices.”