UNIVERSAL DESIGN:

THE ESSENTIAL TOOL FOR INTERGENERATIONAL COMMUNITIES

In less dense cities, the problem often is a lack of accessible/protected-from-the-elements bus stops.

And if a bus driver is not well trained in deploying lifts or in safely using tie downs for those in assistive mobility devices, the benefits of rapid transit are destroyed for the 80 million people with a disability in the United States.

Without transit, multiple generations cannot connect to exchange ideas, gather healthy food, keep fit or break the boundaries of isolation.

Simply taking away benches along streets, in an ill-intended attempt to reduce use by homeless people, can prevent an elderly person from staying healthy by walking a half dozen blocks to the library, grocery store or neighborhood shop.

People cannot age in place if their housing, sidewalks, transit, parks and civic buildings exclude them.

Children cannot safely move about the community independently if sidewalks are blocked by parked cars, bike lanes are blocked by delivery trucks and streets are too dangerous to cross because of speeding traffic.