The invisible pedestrian

We all depend on walking and we are all pedestrians. However much we may rely on private or public road, rail, air, water or hover transport, we all have to use our feet to reach our vehicles, to change between them and to move around when we reach our destinations. There may well be no such thing as a non-pedestrian: there are certainly people who make little or no use of our transport facilities. The NCC study What's wrong with walking1 has shown that the people who cannot make use of public or private transport tend to be women rather than men, the very young or very old, as opposed to those in the prime of life, disabled rather than able-bodied and poor rather than well-off. In other words, those who are least able to rely solely on walking are the very people who have to walk most because transport is not available to them.