Cars are not accessible
From [1], there are 4 groups of people are affected by car-based design:
- Children and Teenagers
- Stay-at-Home Parents
- The Income-Vulnerable
- Senior Citizens
Once the infrastructure for cars gets bad enough, they’re entirely useless. This is what happened in Toronto. Cars getting stuck in the snow making the owners abandon them. It would also take a long time to clear these roads [2].
The city’s mayor, John Tory, warned on Tuesday that it would take days to get the roads fully cleared, and 600 road plows, 360 sidewalk plows and 200 salt trucks were deployed.
Many people with disablities are unable to drive [3]. In fact, 26% of adults in the United States have some type of disability [4]. But they can use their mobility scooters on the pedestrian paths and bike lanes as shown in this video [5].
Car infrastructure is not equitable for everyone. It hurts the poor more than the rich. Everyone pays for roads even if they don’t drive [6].
Even when cities try to accommodate for pedestrians by building pedestrian bridges, they are still inaccessible because these bridges are typically built with steep stairs or steep sloped ramps which are particularly challenging for people with disabilities, children, the elderly, and anyone carrying goods [7]. Not too mention that they are costly to build and maintain [7]. And when you lay them flat, they’re actually longer than a pedestrian crossing.
