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Care Ethics and the Built Environment (Part Two): The Duty to Care and Safety of Vulnerable Road Users

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Abstract

Part One of this article introduced care ethics as a way of viewing the built environment and how it supports the safety of road users. Care ethics focuses on our collective human interdependence, vulnerability, and need, which draws attention to our relationships with each other, as well as the environments in which we occupy and travel. In the context of safe travel, the built environment is a caring matter, as its design has an impact on the safety of road users, particularly those who are made vulnerable by the current design of built environments that prioritize motor vehicle travel. As explained in Part One, road users are not inherently vulnerable; they are made vulnerable by the design of the built environment. Part Two focuses on the needs of vulnerable road users (VRUs), including people with disabilities. Utilizing the language of care ethics and fundamental needs helps to reveal the inadequacies of current built environments. Elevating our understanding of how the built environment is a matter of care can support road safety advocates in persuading decision-makers to implement necessary changes that enhance the safety of all road users. 

Introduction

In this article I continue an important conversation about the value of employing the lens and language of care ethics to examine the relationship between road users’ safety and the built environment. Safety is inherently a matter of care, and terms like care and caring are used liberally and often without much thought throughout our daily lives. It is pervasive and meaningful while, interestingly, remains inadequately interrogated or examined in the road safety space. Other important areas of life such as healthcare (1), education (2), and sport (3) have utilized a care ethics lens to examine caring relations between person, the conditions that help to cultivate caring relations between persons (or not), and organizations’ contributions to creating caring conditions for their members by meeting their needs (or not) (4). Utilizing a care ethics lens helps to make visible our universal interconnectedness and how our relationships with each other and the environments in which we work, travel, and play (e.g., the built environment), impact our safety (5). In other words, “paying attention to/with care may assist us in understanding the role of maintenance and repair in creating more caring and just cities; emphasize our collective interdependence and responsibility for one another; and reveal silences, injustices, and neglect in a way that provokes action” (6 p1).

According to Bates and colleagues, “there is much to be done to improve the quality of the built environment and people’s experiences of it” (7 pxiii), as the design of our communities can protect and improve the quality of life for its inhabitants (8). This is particularly salient in the context of transportation, “which is capable of providing the basic requirements of safety, well-being, comfort, health, economic growth, and social development to communities in varying degrees” (9 p1). The inadequacies of current built environments are demonstrated by road-related injuries and deaths (10,11), the rates for which increase with vulnerable road users, such as people with disabilities (12). Thus, Part Two of this article series will more clearly illustrate the importance of caring built environments for the safety of vulnerable road users (VRUs) and people with disabilities. 

Care ethics: A quick review

To recall, care ethics defines care as a relation where one person responds to the needs of an other (13). Tronto and Fisher offer this helpful definition,

Caring [can] be viewed as a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, ourselves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web. (14 p40)

In other words, activities that maintain, continue, and repair our world are those that establish, maintain, or restore the agency of people by ensuring their fundamental needs are met. It is the connection between agency and fundamental needs that emphasizes the importance of care, where agency is defined as “the ability to achieve some manner of results in the world, to affect change in accordance with one’s volition, and to maintain the ability to carry out projects (often self-determined) in a surrounding environment” (15 p24). Miller offers the following definition of the fundamental needs that, if not met, will compromise one’s agency:

They are needs that a person cannot satisfy without the help of others. They are absolute in that they make those in need necessarily dependent on an other to meet those needs. Fundamental needs must be met in order to develop, maintain, or restore human agency. Not responding to fundamental needs results in serious harm to the individual. (15 p47).

Thus, when we start to view the built environment as an entity that can be caring or uncaring for its users, we can more clearly articulate how by referring to the eleven fundamental needs involved in caring: 1) nutrition and water; 2) rest; 3) shelter; 4) healthy environment; 5) bodily integrity; 6) healing; 7) education; 8) attachments; 9) social inclusion, participation, and recognition; 10) play; and 11) security. 

Duty of Care

Of course, the built environment is not an entity capable of actively adapting and responding to the needs of road users in real-time. However, decisions about the design of built environments are made by people in positions of power within organizations responsible for transportation, urban planning, etc. When we consider the role that organizations play in meeting fundamental needs, the Duty of Care is useful because it helps to discern who must care, “as well as how much, how often, and in which situations they are to offer care” (15 p46). Broadly, the Duty of Care “obliges others to respond to individuals’ fundamental needs so that those individuals can once again determine and seek their own subjective ends” (15 p52). In the context of road safety, a duty to care means designing the built environment in such a way that all road users are safe. Given the responsibility of municipalities to ensure the safety of persons within their borders, it is reasonable to assert that, with regards to transportation safety and the built environment, they have a duty to care. 

As noted in Part One, a contribution of this current work is the novel imagining of the built environment as an entity capable of care and, by extension, those responsible for the design of the built environment as carers. In the context of the road user/built environment relationship, to enact a Duty of Care, “carers need to know something about the individuals or groups to whom they are responding. They need information about internal conditions – the sufferings, longings, and fears of those who need care – as well as external conditions” (17 p58). Understanding the needs of road users, particularly those who are rendered vulnerable by current built environments, is essential for municipal decision-makers tasked with designing environments that uphold fundamental needs. It has been clearly established that built environments designed for cars (18,19) neglect the needs of VRUs and people with disabilities. Thus, it is important to elevate our understanding of the road safety needs of these groups.

Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs)

As noted above, road users are not inherently vulnerable; they are made vulnerable by the design of the built environment (20,21), an important distinction that further highlights the value of employing a relational care lens to examine the built environment and how it cares for road users (or not). However, the term vulnerable road users (VRUs) is the language most commonly used in the road safety world, so I will continue to use this language. Recall the definition of VRUs: “pedestrians, motorcyclists, and bicyclists are considered to be vulnerable road users since they do not have the protective shell of a vehicle in case of a collision” (22 paragraph 1). Thus, built environments that “care” for VRUs prioritize space for their safe travel, which means separate and protected lanes for cyclists, people who wheel, and people who walk or run, as well as safe crossing features such as crosswalks (23). 

Without protected lanes and spaces these road users become vulnerable, which means their vulnerability can be reduced if the built environment is designed to protect them (24). Recall the eleven fundamental needs involved in caring (nutrition and water; rest; shelter; healthy environment; bodily integrity; healing; education; attachments; social inclusion, participation, and recognition; play; and security) – dedicated and protected lanes for VRUs helps to enhance road users’ agency by fulfilling their fundamental need for a healthy environment: “In order to become an agent and to maintain agency, one must be surrounded by an environment that is sustaining rather than injurious. A hygienic, non-toxic environment is necessary” (15 p41); “...an environment that is sustaining rather than injurious” is crucial, and particularly relevant when viewing the built environment through a lens of care. Space for VRUs also fulfills their fundamental need for security: “Freedom from coercive, threatening environments – physical, psychological, and emotional – is required. Agency cannot fully develop or be sustained in environments of extreme anxiety and fear” (15 p42). Places for folks to rest along routes are also necessary, and are even more caring if they include shelter and lighting, which also helps fulfill their fundamental need for security. Overall, it is clear to see how the design of the built environment can enhance or compromise care for VRUs.

People with disabilities

There has been an increase in research concerned with the lived experiences of people with disabilities and how they navigate the built environment (25,26). Such research “demonstrates how the built environment has the capacity to impede and/or prevent disabled people’s mobility while restricting their access to specific spaces” (27 p357). Easy access to essential amenities such as food, health care, and education is integral to mental and physical well-being and bestows a sense of dignity (28,29). Further, the link between people’s well-being and their residential community environments (e.g., the built environment) supports the need to ensure that the design of the built environment fulfills these needs, as well as any interventions “that seek to change conditions to improve well-being and reduce inequalities” (28 p1). Overall, the design of some built environments restricts the mobility and access required by people with disabilities (27).

Built environment features that would be considered caring for people with disabilities include wheelchair ramps and smooth pathways that are not full of obstacles (27), as well as wayfinding and signage, access to outdoor spaces, and acoustics in the built environment for people with vision impairments (30). More specifically, Accessibility Standards Canada outlines areas where people with disabilities may experience barriers to accessibility of outdoor spaces, including outdoor paths (e.g., recreation trails, paths to beaches, sidewalks and walkways), lack of accessible parking, outdoor public use eating areas, and outdoor play spaces (30). Further, wayfinding and signage amenities such as tactile walking surface indicators, wayfinding cues, lighting, and audible beacons are required if people with disabilities are to safely navigate the built environment (30). 

Utilizing a care ethics lens shows how the absence of these important built environment features compromises the agency of people with disabilities as they travel; specifically, their fundamental need for a healthy environment and security. In addition, the absence of accessible pathways and walkways to leisure amenities, such as green space and beaches, also compromises road users’ agency by threatening their fundamental need for social inclusion, participation, and recognition: “Agency calls for a degree of inclusion in the surrounding social world, participation in one’s material and social environment, and sufficient recognition from others” (15 p42). Their fundamental need for play is also threatened: “The cultivation and maintenance of agency requires play – pleasurable recreational experiences during which humor and creativity flourish” (15 p42). When we view the built environment through the lens of care ethics we can more clearly see how it cares for some road users more than others and, subsequently, where significant improvements can be made by decision-makers in positions of power. 

Concluding Remarks

Employing a care ethics lens to the relationship between road users and the spaces in (and through) which they travel demonstrates how road users’ safety is inextricably linked to the design of the built environment. Safety is a matter of care, a central theme across the eleven fundamental needs required to maintain, establish or restore agency (15). Interestingly, the language of care, needs, and agency are not unheard of in the realm of health and safety. For example, as stated in the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion, “to reach a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, an individual or group must be able to identify and to realize aspirations, to satisfy needs, and to change or cope with the environment” (31 p2), aligning with care ethics’ definition of agency (15). While broad, this passage refers to satisfying needs and being able to adapt to an environment, one that has an influence on their health and well-being, such as the built environment. Further, there is research that identifies the role of healthy communities and the support required by municipalities and decision-makers to do so. For example, according to Dannenberg and colleagues, “a healthy community protects and improves the quality of life for its citizens, promotes healthy behaviours and minimizes hazards for its residents, and preserves the natural environment” (8 p1500). 

The purpose of Part One and Part Two of this article series was to employ the language of care ethics to the realm of road safety, focusing on the built environment. Drawing on the eleven fundamental needs involved in caring, and their inextricable link to agency, one can more clearly see how many built environments are designed to care for the safety needs of some road users over others. The safety of VRUs and people with disabilities are sometimes neglected, but it is the responsibility of decision-makers in positions of power within municipalities to ensure that all folks living within and who travel through their borders are safe and cared for by the built environment. Some progress has been made, but we have a long way to go. Perhaps the language of care ethics can help road safety advocates persuade decision-makers to design more caring built environments? As stated by Williams, care ethics has the power to “reveal silences, injustices, and neglect in a way that provokes action” (6 p1).

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