Microblog Memes

It’s so weird, do they think handicapped people can bike and walk everywhere or don’t exist?

As a handicapped person myself, it really baffles me how people think car oriented infrastructure is so much better for us. I am a wheelchair user, and I live in a 15 minute neighborhood. Getting around in my wheelchair is a million times simpler there than in my old car-centric suburb, because the same disabilities that make me wheelchair bound also prevent me from driving. Which mean that in a car-centric environment I do one of the following:

a) Rely on the generosity of friends and family to cart me around at their convenience, or b) Utilize shared access rides, which are door to door, but take longer than using public transit, or c) Roll myself to underserved suburban bus stops over badly maintained sidewalk, and pray I make it on time.

None of which are appealing.

Meanwhile, in my 15 minute city:

• The buses often run at 10 to 15 minute intervals (vs 30 to 60 minutes in the suburb),
• Sidewalks are larger
• I have less distance to travel in the first place

You never even seen the Netherlands, have you? Also, what I tell everyone who comes up with these kind of non-questions, no one is taking your car away. Cars still exist in Europe, but they are not the default, they are used for what they make sense, making irregular trips of 100+Km. But chances are, that there is a train that serves the route anyway.

Handicapped people: most have access to electric micro-mobility vehicles that are legal to use on bike lanes. For those who can't use micro vehicles, there's still cars, and vans. They still exists. They weren't magicked away.

Kids: My sister lives in the outskirts of Madrid, her neighborhood is littered with dozens of parks of all kinds, all less than 10 minute walks. My 10 y.o. nephew can go on his own to many parks without ever having to set foot on asphalt, cross a road or get on neither a bus or a car. He has never had to play on a street. They live in an urban tower that, while they don't have a personal green cancer backyard, they have a skatepark, a playground, a pet park, sport courts (tennis, badminton, soccer and basketball), a running trail and a botanical garden, all within walking distance.

Handicapped people are more affected by the inverse. Small cities are great, car-centric communes are terrible for them. They've worked out their own mobility issues, but those solutions are interrupted when the crosswalks and pedestrian bridges are affected. If the "solution" involves getting in and out of a car repeatedly, it's often cumbersome for people in wheelchairs.

The point on kids really relates more to neighborhood safety, and how often people interact with a community. Often, kids should be trusted to go down the street to the park. All our old Saturday newspaper comics involve kids going places themselves on foot or bike instead of constantly "being dropped off".

I can't figure out how they think these utopian 15 minute cities would work if they don't have a working transit built in. It's so weird

Isn't the assumption that the 15 minute city is a neighbourhood in a functional city? There should be transit.

It's so weird, do they think handicapped people can bike and walk everywhere or don't exist?

I lived in something like a fifteen minute neighbourhood. I saw people in wheelchairs around. They appeared to use the same amenities as everyone else.

Do they think parents love sending their kids down the block to play by themselves instead of the backyard?

Our kids preferred going to playgrounds because the toys and play structures were better. And they ran into kids they knew.

Their choices aren't going to make sense for a ton of people.

I'm not sure what would be bad about a fifteen minute neighbourhood. It's just a normal neighbourhood, with stores, schools, work, and civic infrastructure.

As far as I can tell, a fifteen minute neighbourhood only adds to what exists, rather than taking away.