A guarantee that everyone can safely, affordably, and conveniently get where they need to go—and walk or bicycle if they choose
The ability to move safely and affordably—to reach work, education, care, and community life, and to be able to move under one’s own power by walking and bicycling—is fundamental to wellbeing. On a practical level, the ability to able to reach groceries and medicine in a way that is affordable and doesn’t waste valuable time is a factor in the cost of those items. When people cannot reach what they need safely or reliably, the effects show foregone opportunities, health harms, and economic stress.
The idea of a “right to mobility” and “right to access” highlights that streets and transportation systems are public spaces and public services, not just conduits for traffic. Elevating these rights requires governance structures that prioritize safety, measure access, and ensure that public spending serves present and future community members.
Wrinkle
In practice, transportation systems in the US still tend to prioritize vehicle speed over human safety and access for people walking, biking, rolling, or using transit. Crashes and serious injuries are often treated as isolated incidents, even where patterns are well understood and preventable. Budgets and design standards continue to support projects that make conditions more hazardous or less inclusive.
People traveling outside of cars are an afterthought. They’re treated as “others” at the margins. They’re inappropriately blamed for causing problems in a system that’s underperforming precisely because it’s so car-centric.
Even when cities adopt visionary frameworks—such as Vision Zero, equity commitments, or climate goals—decision processes often lack clear safeguards and checks. Without explicit duties to protect vulnerable users and steward public resources responsibly, harmful patterns can persist.
Way forward
A rights-based approach to mobility and access connects high-level values to concrete policies, practices, and funding decisions.
It means:
You should be able to walk, wheel, bike, or use transit without facing high risk of death or serious injury.
Streets and public spaces should be designed so drivers’ mistakes are forgiven by the system, not paid for with others’ lives.
Access to work, school, health care, food, and social life shouldn’t depend on owning a car.
Governments have a duty of care to design transport systems that protect vulnerable users (pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair users, kids, older adults).
Elements of this approach include:
Adopting rights to mobility and access: Accepting that public agencies and public-oriented programs have a duty to support the right for people of all ages, abilities, and incomes to be able to reach and connect with what they need.
Clear definitions of safety and access standards: Establishing what residents can reasonably expect in terms of safe crossings, comfortable sidewalks, bike facilities, transit service, and access to essential destinations.
Governance that can measure and manage: Tracking safety outcomes, access to opportunities, and distributional impacts across neighborhoods, and using these metrics in decision-making.
Safeguards in planning and design: Requiring major transportation and land-use decisions to demonstrate protection of safety, support for access, and consistency with resilience and climate-compatibility objectives.
Prioritization of active and shared modes: Treating walking, biking, rolling, and transit as essential public services and directing space and funding accordingly.
Fiduciary stewardship of public spending: Recognizing that public investments in streets and transportation involve duties to current and future residents’ wellbeing and to long-term system resilience.
US cities are moving in this direction through policies such as Vision Zero commitments, adoption of protected bike facilities and safer crossings on high-injury corridors, and budgetary support for active transportation and transit. These actions illustrate how mobility rights can be translated into everyday practice, building safer, more inclusive, and more climate-compatible communities.
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