Читать книгу Not Dead Yet: A Manifesto for Old Age - Julia Neuberger - Страница 9

Then there is the question of access to life, like the problem of transport and getting from place to place. Older people fill our buses and use their Freedom Passes with pleasure and abandon. What would an ideal transport system look like for older people when in rural areas many find it difficult to go anywhere if they do not drive, and in cities and towns there are still shortages of accessible transport, despite disability legislation? What would ideal transport look like? Would it be taxis, private car pooling, rental of wheelchairs in busy places, better access to buses, better and safer places to wait and sit at stations and bus stops?

Younger campaigners might find it awkward to talk about, but there is no doubt that the issue of public loos – as well as park benches, park attendants and seats in shops – are absolutely central to the way older people are being excluded from our town centres. Certainly, older people need to feel safe, given that many public spaces in cities feel as if they have been given over or abandoned to the young and disaffected. But unless there are adequate loos there as well, many older people feel they dare not leave their homes and go shopping. But because there seems an element of bathos about even mentioning it, nothing is done.