Traveling Show

I can see myself living in Atlanta long-term.  There are still a few crumbling Victorians in Grant Park to restore.  The city would be a workable home whether I stay single or have a family.  There is room for me to keep a large dog.  The parts I see are endearingly unkempt.  Food and music are everywhere.  Locals are nice except behind the wheel.  If I stay, I will always miss the dark months, long nights, snow.  However, a new, inexplicable love of cars makes me appreciate mild winters, unsalted roads.

Wheels are the crux of it.  As I rumbled down Moreland in one of the long, venerable, American sedans trawling the surface streets on a recent morning, autistics stuck in the no-man’s-land between help and self-sufficiency were still on my mind.  Something occurred to me: all other things being equal, I would probably not consider making a life here feasible if I was uncomfortable handling a car.  A recent article in Creative Loafing notwithstanding, I doubt I would want my workplace determined by proximity to a faltering public transit system.  If I had too much trouble with visual-spatial issues to drive, cycling might not be a viable alternative.

Thoughts like these worry me.  Most of the people The Arc of Georgia serves, many autistics, and large swaths of the wider disability community cannot drive.  If I fell into that category, even if everything else about me were the same, I would have fewer choices.  Whether people in this position stay, accept Atlanta lite, or go is their personal preference.  Either way, they loose out on the opportunities I have.

I want this to be a city that takes care of its own, especially people who are vulnerable to marginalization.  I want us to make room for people with disabilities, the poor, and our own grandparents.  That means alternatives to cars.  I want to be able to tell people I live in an inclusive community, not one whose criteria for full membership is so arbitrary.  If age or injury takes my ability to make decisions at our outrageous road speeds, I want options.  The transit issue bubbled up and simmered down late this past summer with these people barely mentioned.  I remember one article on people for whom MARTA is a necessity.  The rest of the discussion only acknowledged the young, cool, car-free by choice.  I almost understand that.  Despite personal distaste for hipsters, I would welcome them if they brought tax dollars.  Our schools, water system, anti-homelessness efforts, and roads need them. 

You read that right.  I enjoy all sixteen plus feet and six cylinders of my car.  I love driving.  My interest in our collective prosperity is that I want surface streets repaved for the sake of my white wall tires.  However, I recognize that these are not everyone’s concerns.  There are needs besides mine.  Excluding people from full life in the community because they cannot manage multiple tons of steel moving at speeds nature did not prepare us to attain is wrong.  It is ridiculous.  It harms the people it limits.  It harms everyone else by reducing their ability to contribute.  During our last conversation about public transportation, no one talked about people who need it.  Our silence is a disconcerting statement on our values.  I hope we start talking again.  All other things being equal, I would probably leave if I could not drive.  Is anyone else who can drive consciously aware of this dependence?  Are non-drivers so invisible that most Atlantans cannot imagine themselves in that position?  This is a moral issue touching on equality, fairness, inclusion, empathy, and compassion.  Does anyone else see that?