On Nov 21, 12:50*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
03:31:31 on Sun, 21 Nov 2010, MIG
remarked:

Is there a recognised maximum percentage of the number of people capable
of using public transport - in other words discounting those in
hospital, housebound, agraphobics, and other such circumstances?

It's possibly an interesting point, but the distinction I was making
was not so much about the 100% as about the difference between "most
facilities" and "most people". *I can accept that not all facilities
can instantly be made as accessible as possible.

I accept that figures like "99%" are actually expressing a numerical
quantity, but merely mean "almost everyone".

It simply made me wonder what the actual practical limit was, given that
some people could never be taken on public transport given their
circumstances.

I recognised the practical limit that you were trying to identify, and
didn't dispute the reasoning behind it. Although at the same time
there may be advances in coping with their circumstances; see below.


I can't accept the attitude that some people are never going to be
bothered with.

Did you mean "some people aren't going to be coped with?". The law of
diminishing returns is bound to set in, and where you call it a day is a
political decision.

Both might be expressed in terms of limited funds available.

Sure. Making the Tube accessible to people permanently connected to a
dialysis machine, or inside an oxygen tent, is going to be very
expensive. You may say these are ridiculous examples, but there are many
people with issues which restrict their mobility, beyond those who are
well enough to use a wheelchair.

I accept that, but in the background there has to be general vision of
allowing such people to lead as full a life as possible. New kinds of
dialysis will be invented that don't require permanent connection etc,
but it won't happen overnight. That's not the same as saying we'll
stop looking at improvements to dialysis because most people don't use
dialysis.