Elderly On Scooters Overrun Town

21 September 2004 - 12:00pm

A government-sponsored explosion in the use of scooters by the elderly highlights need for sidewalks.

"Scores of scooters and motorized wheelchairs plod along busy streets to the Wal-Mart, restaurants and beauty salons. Motorists complain that they snarl traffic, and the gray-haired riders fret about the dangers of sharing the asphalt with cars and trucks...In Paintsville, the problem is that the town's sidewalks were not built with motorized scooters in mind, and some of the roads most heavily traveled by scooters do not have sidewalks. That means the elderly and disabled have to ride either on the pavement or along the gravel shoulders."

Source: CNN, September 20, 2004
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At a much larger economic scale, however, one mustn’t avoid calculating the tremendous and exceptional externalities of automobile dependency.