Ten good reasons to enable everyone to use public transport:

1. It has intrinsic value. It involves logical thinking, decision-making, forward planning and the application of common sense. Getting yourself from A to B is a complex educational exercise.

2. It represents a move away from dependence and dependency culture in which some people can be (wrongly) perceived as less valuable than others or as a burden on society.

3. It breeds a feeling of independence and all the feelgood factors that this brings with it to the individual - feelings of self-reliance, greater self-esteem and 'normality', whatever that is!

4. It integrates and includes people who were cut off by the apartheid of ability.

5. People get used to seeing a wider spectrum of 'normality' in public places. Not all our neighbours walk about or perceive things in the same way. Not everyone is as coherent or articulate as everyone else. Some people look or behave strangely. But here we all are.

6. It saves public money.

7. It brings some relief and no little joy to parents and carers.

8. It puts newly independent travellers firmly in the civic domain. They use the streets and public transport and have a right to ask for designs  and policies to incorporate their needs and wishes.