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the glorious car-free future & disability

Disabled people have a wide range of needs.

Some of these needs conflict with a car-centric society, and make

existing in a car-centric society unsafe. Other disabled people have

a car as their lifeline.

Pedestrianization of cities has become increasingly popular in recent

years. This reduces noise (which improves the mental health of people

and wildlife), improves safety (including for children and people with

vision problems), and improves the people's health by reducing

pollution and making walking more enjoyable.

How can we avoid excluding people?

lightweight car alternatives

motorless

Could be made available through normal bicycle-hiring schemes:

Wheeled pull-carts. These are ubiquitous in countries like Germany

for carrying shopping. They allow people who struggle to lift to

carry large, heavy objects over long distances on foot.

Other bicycle types: ones that allow the cyclist to peddle with their

hands, cargo bikes, and more.

motorized

Aging populations have adapted to car-centric areas in North America

by using golf carts - this is interesting:

By requiring electric motors, you reduce noise and emissions.
By limiting vehicles to lower speeds, you improve safety for everyone

in the surrounding area, including the driver.

By limiting vehicles to small sizes, you reduce congestion, improve

safety for cyclists and walkers, and reduce space required for parking,

which allows more space for people, trees, and wildlife.

By removing barriers between the driver and the outside world,

you encourage more empathy and a sense of community.

Electric scooter hiring schemes are increasingly popular in cities,

but they aren't exactly non-controversial, since they commonly clutter

pavements, people ride them unsafely, and so on.

However, they're useful for people who find walking difficult,

but not impossible.

How do we make things widely available, but prevent misuse?

means testing

Making services "only available to Acutally Disabled people"

(means testing) comes with its own set of problems.

medical cannabis as an example

It's common for disabled people to slip through cracks when access to care

requires navigating a system. This can be due to a lack of assistance or

due to the system simply not being built to cover every single possible set

of requirements and needs.

In the places where medical cannabis is available, it's commonly heavily

restricted, which leads to disabled people (with chronic pain, anxiety,

or other problems) who fail to successfully navigate the system to break

the law.

Universal legalization (with harm reduction information widely available)

allows it to benefit more people.

mobility needs and community

In the case of mobility, it's difficult to fully evaluate if someone

"needs" a car. Tradespeople often need trade vehicles, but the average

person doesn't need an articulated truck, and if they had one, the

streets would be more horrible for everyone. It makes sense to restrict

fast, heavy vehicles and allow widespread use of slow, lightweight vehicles.

Most people are taught not to lie, and there is also a certain stigma

attached to accessing services "for disabled people".

A theoretical system for distributing lightweight vehicles for use on that

day should be community-led - engineers without an enforcement background

can help users and fix problems when things inevitably break.

If they suspect a lightweight vehicle or electric scooter is going

to be misused, or supply is limited, questions like "are you exhausted?

do you have something heavy to move? are you finding it difficult to walk?"

make sense. There's no need to require disabled ID.

There is also the inherent truth that making a service useful to able-bodied

people means that a larger number people have a stake in the service being

high quality.