#Accessibility

Building Today to Ease Tomorrow's Journeys

Extending the principle to institutions, good infrastructure is compassion made concrete. The Erie Canal (opened 1825) collapsed transport costs and unlocked inland markets; Carnegie libraries (1883–1929) gave working people free access to knowledge. Each project lowered barriers others would face, long after its builders were gone. The same logic guides today’s civic design: accessible transit, clear signage, and safe public spaces reduce cognitive and physical tolls on future users. Well-chosen standards also spare successors from needless reinvention. When we adopt durable materials, interoperable formats, and open data, we convert present effort into compounding public value—an engineering of ease that dignifies the traveler we may never meet. [...]

Impossibilities Are Merely Things That We Have Not Yet Found Ways to Democratize - Rebecca Solnit

The notion of democratizing implies making access to resources, knowledge, and opportunities available to everyone. Solnit implies that many barriers can be dismantled through collective efforts and sharing. [...]