For decades, parking for disabled people on or near Park Central Square has been abysmal at best, a nightmare at worst.

Right now, if you are mobility impaired and you want to join friends for lunch at the popular spots on South Avenue and Park Central East, you've got about a 20-to-one shot of finding a handicapped parking spot. And it very probably won't be within your walking or even wheeling distance. The space is likely to be one of those in the lot down Boonville Canyon north of the square that has served as the main handicapped parking lot for years.

That lot is at least an uphill block away from the northeast part of the square, behind the Abundant Life church (the old Fox Theatre). Many of the favored lunch spots lie to the south and east of the square.

By the time you get from that northeast parking lot to Nonna's Italian American Cafe or the South Avenue Pizza Company and Finnegan's Wake on South Avenue, you've traveled three blocks. Circle the square and surrounding area sometime during weekday lunch hour. If you need to park close to a place and you're mobility-disabled, you might just have to turn around and go back from whence cometh thou.

Riad Matar, owner of Riad's on the square, even put in a second restaurant in a strip mall on Republic Road so his elderly and disabled customers could park close to the door.

Here's the rundown of downtown handicapped parking today: There are two spaces in the northwest corner of the square near the state office building, always filled, while numerous disabled people do business inside and scramble the best they can to get there. There are two spaces next to the bus turn-around on McDaniel and Patton just west of the square; one in front of the old Union National Bank building at the square's southeast corner; and then, of course, the downhill-slide behind the Abundant Life/old Fox Theatre building.

The trek up Boonville Hill is a block and a half to the Social Services Department on the northeast corner, where all kinds of people with disabilities deal with crucial issues. I've walked it with my friend who has cardiopulmonary obstructive disease and is on oxygen, and we had to stop seven times.

There are seven new parking spaces in both the new Heer's parking garage and the College Station parking garage on Campbell, but again, those are two to three blocks from a lot of the places customers want to go.

There is one handicapped spot each on Park Central West and Park Central East, although they share space with loading zones. Not good. Either you're a van with a lift or a beer truck -- not both.

But brighter days loom, and I hope disabled downtowners will keep us abreast of how the new parking plan works. With square renovations, the handicapped parking availability will double. By the time upgrades are finished, there will be 17 new handicapped spaces near the square, says Martin Gugel, a professional engineer with the Public Works Department.

The improvements will be finished, hopefully, within six months depending on weather, Gugel says. The three spaces now on the square will be gone, but there will be new on-street handicapped spaces -- three on Olive Street right outside the Heer's building, accessible by the breezeway to the square.

Another four spaces will be on Park Central West and Park Central East -- two on each side -- and not shared as loading zones. There will be three added spaces in front of the library and Coffee Ethic. Disabled people can travel through the library to South Avenue.

Handicapped spaces surrounding and on the square will then have grown to 30, Gugel says.

Legally, the only spaces the city has to offer are those in parking garages and lots: That's all the federal Americans with Disabilities Act requires. The ADA only mandates that the regular-to-disabled parking space quota is 25-to-1 in garages and parking lots, with no on-street rules. But Gugel says the city and the Missouri Department of Transportation have decided to exceed that ratio.

I am skeptical of the Public Works Department assertion that all accessible spaces will be "within a one-block radius of the square," however. That may be true if you're a crow and you're flying. But the route from the accessible spaces to many businesses might as well be a 10K to many disabled people.

I await with great enthusiasm the new disabled parking. But I hope that this time, disabled people will be more vocal if they feel excluded from downtown by parking.

I hope that this time, they'll call their council representatives and let them know how much money they'd be spending, if they could just park close enough to go to lunch or dinner.

I hope that this time, they won't just circle the square for 15 minutes, then turn around and go back.

Sarah Overstreet's column runs Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. She can be reached at 836-1188 or soverstreet@news-leader.com.