Thursday, August 4, 2016

Adding equipment lockers to parks



Adding equipment lockers to parks
This idea  is so low cost that it could readily be implemented for every park in a city.




Place lockers in many  of a citys park.
 Outdoor & vandal proof lockers


-each locker will contain recreation equipment for one (or possibly more)special need(s).

 

-Keys to these lockers will  (initially*) be made available only to people with special needs

-A key  to  one of the  lockers in the park nearest where a person with special needs lives may be obtained from a city agency that lends keys to these lockers.

 _lockers can be set up filled with equipment (easiest)

There
-doesn't have to be a lot of lockers
-lockers need not be filled with any equipment



-Set up a few lockers
-When a special needs resident requests equipment
-A parks department storehouse will ship equipment for the locker to the district maintence crew
-crew will place items in locker
-person with special needs will; be informed that locker is now filled with recreation equipment



This agency may be eithe:

-The Parks department
-The city's Library system
-The city's health department
- Departnment of Social services Toy Loan in LA done by Departmentt of Social Services
-another city agency with a mandate to work with people with special needs

Travel distance to a park is an important factor in how often a park is used. By having special needs recreation equipment made available in EVERY city park travel distance to parks with equipment for special needs will be minimized and park usage  by people with special needs should increase.

Paratransit for parks is not met to replace the need for the creation of fixed equipment inclusive playgrounds  in a city.   Rather

-it is meant to act as a supplement to  the few  fixed equipment inclusive playspaces that most city's can afford to build. 

-It is also meant to offer sopecial needs recreation equipment to populations that are not served by inclusive playgrounds.  Many fixed equipment inclusive playgrounds are built for children with special needs. They are not built to serve the needs of teenagers, adults and seniors. By adding flexible equipment options as these lockers to parks, people with special needs who are over 12 years of age can also have their recreation neess met.


*Either initially limit to special needs, or offer 2 types of lockers special needs and developmentally normal. This will make sure that those with special need will always have equipment available.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(draft)



Much of the equipment will be real world recreation equipment things like lego sets and guitars. But those are 20th century recreation  objects. paratransit for parks will transform 20th century fixed parks into 21st century loose parks with concepts like  Augmented Reality and hi bandwith wifi gamiing.

Having recently seen Microsoft Holovision and Magic Leap  I see both of these technologies as creation tremendous opportunities to offer a single piece of recreation equipment that can meet far more recreation needs then any piece of fixed equipment.

Microsoft Holovision




Magic Leap








continued  here