Also, in the comments section of this video I saw a really good comment about car dependency and accessibility:
There’s one aspect I want to add to this because I’m ashamed at how ignorant I used to be in this regard: Driving and Disability.
For context, in 2015 I became very ill suddenly and instead of the illness going away it kept getting more and more severe. In 2018 I was medically confirmed disabled due to my worsening heart and as a result I couldn’t drive anymore. Before my disability I assumed, much like quite literally everyone I knew, that disabled people could only realistically get around by car or by being driven somewhere. The idea of getting groceries or heading to a medical appointment seemed impossible for someone non-able-bodied and as a result I made the ignorant assumption that reducing car infrastructure would be horrific to some of the most vulnerable people in our population.
Instead, becoming disabled taught me how HORRIBLE it is to be disabled in a car-infested world. First off, I live alone due to a suppressed immune system so the very act of trying to get a ride is either impossibly expensive through a ridesharing service or I’d have to beg my friends to help me get to the store when they already have enough going on in their lives. Second, despite me living remarkably close to a grocery store for an American suburb, I have to cross a major road, 2 parking lots, and 2 backstreets before getting to the store which is exhausting as someone already weak and without a simple, flat path to walk on. Third, and this is the most important part, despite being less than half a mile away from the store and in slow-speed parking lots, I have been nearly hit SO many times I can’t even count. I already can’t move nearly as fast as my able-bodied counterparts but it’s made even worse carrying heavy groceries back to my home since drivers do not care about your safety at all.
Now the immediate question I get from people all the time is: “Well, how exactly would walkable streets help you at all? You still struggle to walk to the store so wouldn’t it be better to have a personal driver or make public passes for free ridesharing?” The thing people seem to completely miss is the fact that most disabled people can walk fine. We WANT to walk more. We WANT to do low-impact exercise and experience the world around us. We WANT to be able to visit friends or go to bars or just have fun in our lives just like you. The struggles I get from walking to the store aren’t from the walking itself but the hyper-vigilancy I need to practice around drivers and the uneven, altitude-changing roadways that make going up and down a struggle. Had I just had a regular, flat path I could walk along without the worry of rushing across a street then not only would my time walking be cut dramatically but I’d actually be comfortable doing it. It’s also saying nothing about how much it would help people confined to motorized wheelchairs that are rarely able to get around rough terrain. That’s not even including the consideration of a mixed-use development where my store could literally be an elevator ride away and going to the store wouldn’t be a calculation of risking life or death to feed myself.
The only reason I can say this with any amount of confidence is because I met a fellow disabled friend across the ocean in Denmark. While Denmark is certainly far from a car-less utopia of walkability and freedom, Danish cities still blow our cities out of the water with being at least partially viable for the disabled. My friend has similar heart problems made even worse by being forced to walk with crutches. Yet, despite his clear worse health, he does FAR more walking than I ever could because his grocery store is in a mixed-use development and even if he needs to make a longer trip he can do so without ever considering that his life might end. When I told him about how badly I needed a car over here he reacted with complete shock when he heard what I had to go through just to get food to eat. It’s one of those things where I slowly realized that I’ve normalized something that’s a complete injustice to any disabled person when we’re some of the weakest in society yet we work HARDER than the average person just to survive the basic act of walking.
And the worst part about this is that I still love cars. I love the feeling of fixing things and giving a symbolic middle finger to any overpriced shop for friends and family. I love tinkering and modifying cars and watching my dreams slowly come to fruition. I love seeing everyone’s personal ride and listening to the stories of how each dent got there or the friends they’ve made along the way. I want to love all of these things but I now need to take a hard look back at everything I’ve loved and realize how much of it truly stems from horrible lobbying and marketing that made me love cars at the expense of everyone else. Like I said before, I’m ashamed it took me this long to wake up to just how bad it is to be outside of a car and how lucky I was before my illness to even be able to afford it or be around people who could. Falling into poverty and seeing the dark underbelly of something I once loved hurts so bad, but frankly I, and many others, NEED to force ourselves through it not just for my own survival but for everyone I’ve ignored (and even fought against…) throughout the years. My hope is that if I ever meet them again someday I can show my deepest regrets and just say sorry for implying that their survival came after my love for big things that go fast. I hope the first step to that is finding someone who reads this and realizes that things could be better for all of us rather than a lucky few. Walkable cities are better for everyone, including drivers, and now I may literally have to fight to the death to prove it.
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