Freedom

This infrastructure creates freedom.

Melissa & Chris Bruntlett

Many people can’t drive

Approximately 40% of people can’t drive, including:

• people who are too young to drive, e.g. under the age of 17
• people who are too old to drive, e.g. over the age of 85
• people who don’t have a driver’s licence, e.g. 15% of adults
• people who are unable to drive, e.g. with vision impairment
• people who are injured, e.g. with a moon-boot
• people who can’t afford to drive, e.g. young people attempting to save for a home
• people who can’t access a car, e.g. a young adult in a family where the car is used each day by others
• people who find driving and parking to be too difficult or stressful

When Driving Is Not An Option

For these people, driving isn’t an option, and alternatives are required, such as walking, biking, and public transport. For many of these people, safe infrastructure for biking offers freedom – the ability to get to school, work, friends’ or shops, on their own terms, quickly and easily, and for low cost.

Guidance from Strong Towns

Freedom isn’t just about driving; that view is incoherent:

The key to understanding the incoherence of the auto-centric libertarian is to recognize that they equate the automobile with individual freedom. In that mindset, when the government spends money increasing the amount people drive, they are simultaneously increasing individual freedom, which in their eyes is the primary role of government.

Charles Marohn, Confessions of a Recovering Engineer

Guidance from Create Streets

Liberating children is good for their physical health…Liberating children is good for their development by helping children become better adults…Liberating children is good for their parents and would cut traffic…Freedom is good for our mental wellbeing…Children who are more free seem to be more happy.