# 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 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
for able-bodied people means that a larger number people have
a stake in the service being high quality.