Ethical Issues

Transportation's Positive Effects

The purpose of transportation is to move people or objects from one place to another. Although in theory transportation systems enhance people's physical mobility, the design of the infrastructure may fail to address the specific needs of individuals who already face limitations to their physical mobility, such as the elderly and disabled people. If one accepts the propositions that all individuals have a right to mobility and that the individuals more vulnerable to losses of mobility should be given special attention, then society has the moral responsibility to meet the needs of these individuals.

Addressing these needs presupposes the implementation of proactive strategies to remove the barriers individuals face in accessing the transportation network, such as the introduction of buses without steps or the redesign of the street network to meet the limitations of elderly or disabled pedestrians. It can also involve measures of positive discrimination at the level of spatial planning, such as the attachment of priority status to the provision of public transportation in areas with high proportions of elderly people.

A broader view would also consider factors that prevent individuals from fully realizing the mobility potential offered by the transportation system. For economic reasons, young people and low-income or unemployed individuals may have limited access to private vehicles and are more vulnerable to increases in the costs of public transportation. Social and cultural aspects add to these factors to place other groups, such as women and ethnic minorities, at a potential disadvantage in the use of the transportation system.

The disadvantage of some groups may also have a geographic dimension, if they face limitations in the access of specific destinations such as jobs, schools, and facilities such as hospitals, parks, or food shops. Research shows that the processes of suburbanization and decentralization of jobs in many cities in North America and Australia and in some European cities have in many cases created [Page 535]a “spatial mismatch” between the places and residences and work of low-income groups and racial minorities. The problem is compounded by lack of access to private vehicles and, in some cases, by the relatively low levels of provision of public transport in the areas where these groups are more concentrated. In most industrialized countries, the concentration of jobs and facilities in medium-sized towns and the closure of facilities in smaller towns and villages have also led to accessibility problems in rural areas, contributing to the isolation of the population in these places.

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