Centering disability justice in active transportation transitions: A conceptual counter-cartography

This paper brings active transportation scholarship into conversation with disability justice, with the aim of centering anti-ableist understandings of space, time, and movement. While the study of active travel has often been reduced to bicycling with two wheels and walking ‘on foot,’ this paper builds on calls for alternative and disability-focused understandings. Drawing from 20 in-depth interviews with people with disabilities from Montreal, Canada and a conceptual counter-cartography approach, we examine the need for expansive definitions of active travel and integrated interventions in the development of active transportation infrastructure, such as those supporting the use of diverse mobility aids, service animals, tandem cycling, as well as other low-speed mobility and resting considerations. Through a disability justice lens, we reframe standard notions of physical activity and transportation transitions, emphasizing an infrastructural politic that centers the rights, expertise, and leadership of people with disabilities.