Comment 52898

By Undustrial (registered) - website | Posted December 09, 2010 at 14:02:39

The question of why drivers are privileged over pedestrians has a lot to do with broader questions of class, gender, age and other unofficial heirarchies. Most of us fit adult males have no trouble sprinting across Main, Cannon or Aberdeen. Just as we don't have much trouble walking the extra distance in under 8 minutes, or getting in a car if we need to. Disabled people, children, the elderly mothers (and increasingly fathers) with strollers - all groups that don't get a lot of consideration in a thousand different areas of life beyond traffic. The biggest reason it's being brought up now is the support of better-off types like us who have the education and privilige to bring it up. As much as I love choosing to not own a car - I have to admit that for many people, it's far from a "choice" either way.

And while it would be easy to write off these kind of issues as a symptom of poverty and other issues like it - we can't forget the role they play in perpetuating poverty. Cars cost a lot of money (directly and indirectly), and making it difficult or impossible to live and work without a car makes it a hell of a lot harder to be poor, disabled, elderly, young, or a parent.

"Today, the notion of progress in a single line without goal or limit seems perhaps the most parochial notion of a very parochial century." — Lewis Mumford

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