ALL WALKS

Limiting cars in cities can help disabled people, too.

- JULIA MÉTRAUX

DANI IZZIE, A WHEELCHAIR user with quadriplegia, tried to take public transit, as she usually does, when visiting Miami in 2022. Heading to catch a bus, Izzie came to the end of a street without curb cuts-meaning she couldn't safely cross it to the bus stop. She tried to get an accessible taxi, but none were available. The door-to-door paratransit service wasn't an option, since it needs advance scheduling. It ultimately took a call to police, who helped her down the curb.

This wasn't the first time, says Izzie, that "the absurdity of one little oversight" limited her autonomy and mobility. The real estate website Redfin's Walk Score rates Miami the sixth-most walkable large city in the United States. But its methodology, Redfin confirmed to me, does not account for accessibility.

Since the 1990s, there's been a push among urbanists to reduce city driving and its hazards: American pedestrian fatalities number more than 7,000 a year, and with each car in a city releasing close to 5 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, car reliance harms everyone else, too.

Some US cities-including Los Angeles; Tempe, Arizona; and Jersey City, New Jersey-have made great strides toward limiting cars, mainly by designating car-free streets or areas. But car-free zones have met opposition, and not just from irate conservatives. Opponents of such initiatives have called them "exclusionary," "not progressive or inclusive," and bound to "hurt people with disabilities," pointing out that many disabled people simply need cars to get around.