I don’t usually track business news, but when online financial news provider Moneywise ran this article, I have epilepsy and can’t drive — is it worth spending half of my income on rent to be able to walk to work? I immediately clicked on the site. I couldn’t get a driver’s license until I was 50 due to my uncontrollable seizures, so the title resonated loudly.
The article references a National Disability Institute study, which found that the 20 million working-age Americans who live with a disability spend 28% more to achieve the same standard of living as their counterparts without disabilities. According to the study, this is because people with disabilities have personal assistance and health-care related costs, as well as additional disability-related costs including buying an expensive car that can accommodate a wheelchair, purchasing food for special diets, and paying more for housing that is accessible and convenient. Where I couldn’t drive most of adulthood, I based my housing choices on transit accessibility and rented in expensive cities. The study validated my lived experience.
The same day I read this article, I came across an entry on the Seizures and Epilepsy Support Group, page, one of several Facebook groups that provides members an online platform to seek advice, sympathy, and encouragement from peers with epilepsy. The post was written by a man whom I call Paul. He lamented how different his life would be if he could drive. He’d see his family more often and have more friends, maybe even a girlfriend. He wrote about the embarrassment he felt making plans with potential friends or dates because he had to ask for rides.
I posted a response to Paul and told him about my experience living car-free while managing my uncontrollable seizures. I lived near Boston and shared apartments with roommates for decades until I got married. Not being able to drive sucks, for sure, but living near public transit mitigates the challenge quite a lot. While that might include a big life change which can be difficult, city living provides a level of independence, as you don’t have to depend on rides or cars. That independence is liberating and feels so good that it might be worth the change.
As I typed the words, I recognized that Paul might not have the resources to move to a city with public transit. The number of metropolitan areas with extensive transit systems can be counted on one’s fingers, and they’re all very expensive to live in. The woman with epilepsy in the Moneywise article was considering a 50% increase in her rent, so she could live walking distance from her job. She struggled to determine whether the convenience was worth the high rent. For me, the higher expense was worth it, and I was blessed with enough resources to afford city living. But not every person who can’t drive is so lucky.
Sadly, these challenging scenarios are likely to increase in the face of funding cuts embedded in the Budget Reconciliation Bill (H.R. 1) signed this month. The president nicknamed H.R.1 the Big Beautiful Bill, but its impacts on public transportation and urban accessibility are actually quite ugly. The bill rescinds billions in funding for projects that improve communities’ street safety, convenient job and opportunity access, and clean air. The funds that weren’t spent before July 4th are now being taken back. Apparently, of the 98 projects that received federal funding under the previously funded Neighborhood Access and Equity Program, there were 60 that hadn’t received their grants when H.R. 1 was passed. These projects are based in communities across the country that will now be fiscally responsible for the unobligated multi-million-dollar budget gaps. Defunded projects include a revitalization project in Madison, Wisconsin that increases a main thoroughfare’s access to local businesses and improves accessibility for pedestrians and bicyclists. Also, a pedestrian bridge construction in Huntsville, Alabama that would create access to the downtown’s essential services and job opportunities for residents living in neighborhoods that are currently isolated from them.
The president’s so-called beautiful bill is decreasing communities’ street safety, clean air and convenient job opportunity access. There are millions of people like Paul and the woman in the Moneywise article who have health conditions that restrict their driving abilities. Sadly, the passage of H.R. 1 will limit these people’s lives further. Given my firsthand experience of this limitation, I am appalled by the bill’s impacts.
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