When the Bus Does Not Stop for Everyone

On Freedom, Disability, and Just Accommodation

A man is standing at a bus stop with two colleagues.

They have attended a professional conference and are travelling from the airport to the city centre. The bus is there. Tickets are available. The route is public and, in principle, open to everyone.

The man uses a wheelchair.

The bus is equipped with a designated space and a technical system intended to make travel possible for him. Even so, he is not allowed to board. The wheelchair space is occupied by luggage, or the staff tell him that he should have given advance notice. He is directed towards a taxi or told to wait for another departure.

The other passengers can simply arrive at the stop without warning.

He cannot.

Formally, a transport service exists.

In practice, it is not available to everyone.

This small incident contains a large question about justice. What does it mean to be free to travel if travel is possible only for those who fit the system’s expectations? Is a service truly public when some people must ask for special permission to use it? And who bears responsibility when a person is left behind: the individual, the body, or the society that organised the transport?

Martha Nussbaum’s theory of justice helps us understand why equal rules do not always create equal freedom.

It is not enough for the bus to be open to everyone in theory.

Justice requires that people can actually get on board.

Formal Freedom

Modern societies are built around the idea of equal rights.

All citizens should be able to travel, attend school, apply for work, participate in political processes, and use public services. Discrimination is prohibited, and many institutions declare themselves open to everyone.

These are important achievements.

But a formal right is not the same as a practical opportunity.

A person may have the right to use public transport and still be excluded from it. A student may have the right to education but be unable to enter the lecture hall. A citizen may have the right to vote but be unable to understand the information or reach the polling station. A job applicant may be formally qualified but encounter digital, physical, or social barriers that make participation unrealistic.

The right remains.

Freedom does not.

This distinction between formal and real freedom is crucial. Formal freedom means that no rule explicitly prohibits participation. Real freedom asks whether a person actually has the opportunity to participate.

The bus may be open in law and closed in life.

When the Same Is Not Equal

Justice is often expressed as equal treatment.

Everyone should follow the same rules. Everyone should pay the same fare. Everyone should stand in the same queue. Everyone should arrive at the same time.

This may seem reasonable.

But the same rule can have very different consequences.

A passenger who can walk may board without significant assistance. A wheelchair user depends on the ramp working, the designated space being available, the driver knowing the procedure, and the system being organised so that the passenger does not have to plan the journey in a completely different way from everyone else.

When both are met with the same rule that passengers should simply arrive at the stop, one person can travel while the other is left behind.

The rule is the same.

The opportunity is not.

Equal treatment then becomes not an expression of justice, but a way of concealing difference.

A just society must sometimes treat people differently in order to give them genuinely equal opportunities. This is not unfair preferential treatment. It is accommodation.

Preferential Treatment or Equality?

The idea of “special treatment” often carries a negative tone.

It can sound as though some people are receiving advantages unavailable to others. A ramp, an assistant, extra time, adapted information, or a cheaper taxi may appear to be something additional.

But the decisive question is what the measure makes possible.

If a ramp gives a wheelchair user the same access that others already possess, it is not a privilege. If a student receives additional time because a disability makes reading slower, the purpose is not to give the student an advantage. The purpose is to reduce a barrier that does not affect the other students.

Accommodation does not necessarily give a person more freedom than others.

It makes shared freedom accessible.

This can be difficult to understand in societies strongly committed to identical rules. The person who does not need accommodation may experience their own access as neutral. The staircase is simply a staircase. Rapid language is simply ordinary information. The short deadline is simply efficient.

But what is neutral for some may be a barrier for others.

Normality is not always innocent.

For Whom Was the System Built?

Every system contains assumptions about its user.

When a bus, school, website, or public office is designed, an unspoken image of the human being often lies beneath the planning.

The user can see, hear, read, and walk. He understands complex language, orients himself quickly, and adapts to the system’s pace. He can arrive at the correct time, manage digital systems, and request help in a way the institution understands.

This person is rarely described.

He simply appears normal.

But when someone does not fit, the system’s hidden assumptions become visible.

The staircase reveals whom the architect imagined.

The digital form reveals whom the administration expected.

The rapid bus departure reveals for whom the transport system was organised.

Disability therefore does not arise only in the body. It also arises in the relationship between the body and the world.

The Medical Narrative

Within a medical understanding, disability is easily located in the individual.

The person cannot walk. The person has impaired vision. The person has difficulty understanding. The problem exists in the body or in functional ability.

This perspective can be necessary. Diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation can help people and provide access to important rights.

But if the medical narrative becomes the only narrative, we risk overlooking the environment.

The man could not board the bus because he uses a wheelchair.

That is one description.

But we may also say that he could not board because the designated space was filled with luggage, the staff failed to follow accessibility procedures, or the system required advance notice that other passengers did not have to provide.

The focus then shifts.

The problem is not only that the body is different.

The problem is that society was poorly prepared for difference.

The Relational Understanding

A relational understanding of disability examines the encounter between the person and the environment.

An impairment may be real. A person may have limited mobility, vision, hearing, or cognitive capacity. But how disabling this becomes also depends on the surroundings.

A wheelchair user is less disabled in a building with lifts, wide doors, and accessible toilets than in a building filled with stairs.

A person with hearing loss has greater opportunities to participate when a room has good acoustics, a hearing loop, and people who speak clearly.

A person with cognitive difficulties may have greater self-determination when information is presented simply, visually, and with sufficient time.

Disability therefore lies neither solely in the individual nor solely in the environment.

It arises in the relationship.

This means that society can reduce disability without changing the body.

The world can be adapted.

Nussbaum’s Question

Martha Nussbaum asks what a human being is actually able to do and to be.

She does not examine only which resources society provides, but what a person can convert those resources into.

A bus route is a resource.

But what does it make possible?

For one person, it makes work, family visits, cultural participation, and free movement possible. For another, it makes nothing possible if the bus cannot be used.

Nussbaum’s theory therefore directs attention towards the outcome in the person’s life.

Does the person have genuine freedom of movement?

Can he influence his own environment?

Can she participate in society on equal terms?

The question is not only whether the transport service exists.

The question is whom it works for.

Freedom as Opportunity

Freedom is often described as the absence of coercion.

I am free if no one forbids me to travel.

But for a person facing physical or social barriers, this concept of freedom is too narrow. No one needs to prohibit the journey if the system already makes it impossible.

Nussbaum’s capability approach shows that freedom also requires real conditions.

A person must have sufficient resources, support, accessibility, and social recognition to carry out a choice.

Freedom is not only an open door.

It is also the opportunity to pass through it.

This does not mean that society can guarantee the fulfilment of every wish. But it must prevent groups from being systematically excluded from basic social goods.

Transport is one of these goods. Without transport, other rights become harder to use.

People cannot reach education, employment, healthcare, meetings, or friends.

Mobility is therefore more than movement.

It is access to society.

The Bus as an Image of Society

The bus can be understood as a small image of public life.

It follows a shared route. Many people board and travel towards different destinations. They share a space without necessarily knowing one another.

In principle, the bus belongs to everyone who has a ticket.

But the community is tested when someone needs more space, more time, or a different entrance.

Is the bus still shared if accommodation is experienced as a delay for others? What happens when luggage occupies the space intended for a wheelchair? Who is expected to adapt to whom?

Such moments reveal how deeply the ideal of inclusion is actually held.

It is easy to support equality as long as it requires no change.

Justice begins when the community is willing to reorganise itself.

The Right to Spontaneity

Many forms of accommodation require advance notice.

The wheelchair user must telephone the day before. The person who needs an interpreter must book well in advance. The person who needs assistance must plan every detail.

Sometimes this is practically necessary.

But it also has a cost.

Other people can decide spontaneously. They can take the next bus, go to the cinema after an unexpected invitation, or change their plans along the way.

The person who must always give notice possesses a different kind of freedom.

Freedom becomes planned, controlled, and conditional.

This shows that equality is not only about eventually reaching a destination. It is also about how life can be lived.

The right to spontaneity is part of ordinary freedom.

Time as a Barrier

Accessibility does not concern only physical spaces.

Time can also be a barrier.

A person may need more time to board, understand information, or express a choice. If the system is organised around maximum speed, slowness becomes a problem.

The bus must stay on schedule.

The conversation must end.

The form must be submitted.

Fast time is often presented as neutral. But it favours those able to keep pace.

Others are left behind.

Just accommodation may therefore mean providing time. Not as charity, but as a condition of access.

The person who needs more time is not necessarily asking for less responsibility.

They are asking for a world in which their way of functioning has a place.

Invisible Disability

Not all barriers are visible.

A person may be able to board the bus but have difficulty understanding where it stops. Another may be sensitive to sound, light, or crowding. A third may have a mental health condition that makes unpredictability overwhelming.

When the disability is not visible, the need for accommodation may be met with suspicion.

The person appears healthy.

This shows how strongly we connect rights with visible proof.

The person asking for consideration may feel compelled to disclose a diagnosis in order to be believed. They must make the private public in order to gain access to something others use without explanation.

Justice therefore also requires a culture of trust.

Not every difference should first have to be proved as a deficiency.

Accessible Information

Accommodation also concerns language and information.

A bus may be physically accessible while the information remains difficult to understand. Timetables, apps, ticketing systems, and service updates may require digital competence and rapid orientation.

For people with cognitive disabilities, these may be decisive barriers.

Simple and clear information is sometimes viewed as a simplification for a small group.

But it often improves the service for many.

Children, older people, tourists, people with limited language proficiency, and people under stress may all benefit from clear information.

Universal design is therefore not merely an expense for a minority.

It can improve the shared world.

Universal Design and Individual Support

Universal design means planning environments and services so that as many people as possible can use them without special arrangements.

This is an important principle of justice.

Step-free access, clear signage, good acoustics, and understandable language make participation easier without requiring the individual to request an exception.

But universal design does not solve everything.

People are different, and some will still need individual support. A personal assistant, companion, interpreter, or special transport arrangement may be necessary.

Justice therefore requires both.

Society must be designed inclusively from the beginning.

And it must be willing to meet needs that cannot be standardised.

Who Bears the Burden of Adaptation?

When a person encounters a barrier, the question arises of who should adapt.

Should the wheelchair user take a taxi?

Should the person with hearing loss find another activity?

Should the person with cognitive difficulties bring a relative?

Or should the public service change?

The burden of adaptation is often placed on the individual. The person must plan, explain, apply, document, and complain.

This requires time and competence.

The person already facing the greatest barriers must also do the most work to overcome them.

Just accommodation means that society carries a larger part of the burden.

Accessibility should not be a personal struggle every time.

It should be built into the arrangement.

Financial Compensation or an Accessible World?

Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum both emphasise real opportunities, but they may be interpreted differently when disability creates additional costs.

One solution is financial compensation. If the wheelchair user cannot take the bus, he may receive money for a taxi.

This may be necessary and just.

But Nussbaum’s perspective invites us to ask something more: Why should the bus not be accessible?

Financial compensation may give the person the opportunity to reach the destination. But it may also preserve a society in which some travel together while others are directed towards separate arrangements.

The taxi solves the transport need.

It does not necessarily solve the exclusion.

An inclusive society must therefore do more than compensate for an inaccessible world.

It must change the world.

Equality and Difference

Justice requires us to hold two ideas together.

Human beings possess equal dignity.

Human beings have different circumstances and abilities.

If we see only equality, we may introduce identical rules that produce inequality.

If we see only difference, we may divide people into groups and special arrangements that weaken the common world.

Just accommodation attempts to preserve both.

It recognises difference without turning it into inferiority.

It affirms equality without pretending that everyone needs the same thing.

This is a difficult balance.

But it is the very core of equality.

Dependence Without Subordination

Accommodation may make a person dependent on others.

A wheelchair user may depend on the driver opening the ramp. A person with visual impairment may depend on information. A passenger with cognitive difficulties may need guidance.

Dependence itself does not have to be degrading.

Degradation arises when assistance is organised so that the person must beg, display gratitude, or accept being treated as a problem.

The person who opens the ramp is not providing a private favour.

They are realising the passenger’s right to travel.

This distinction matters.

Accommodation is not kindness from the strong to the weak.

It is the implementation of justice.

Good Intentions Are Not Enough

Many barriers arise without anyone intending to discriminate.

The driver may be stressed. Other passengers placed the luggage there. The system may have unclear procedures. No one may have thought through the situation.

But the absence of ill will does not make the consequence less real.

The man still cannot travel.

Justice must therefore be judged by more than intention.

We must ask how the arrangement works.

Good intentions can coexist with exclusionary practices. An organisation may support inclusion in principle while lacking the competence, time, and lines of responsibility necessary to make it real.

Accessibility must therefore be planned, practised, and monitored.

It cannot be left to chance.

Small Humiliations

Being left at the bus stop is not only a practical problem.

It can be humiliating.

The person becomes visible as the one creating difficulties. Other passengers wait. Staff discuss the body and the equipment. The travelling companions may have to leave the bus.

The event may communicate a message:

You do not fit here.

Such experiences can accumulate over time. The individual learns which places are difficult, where advance notice is necessary, and when it is easier to stay at home.

Exclusion is gradually internalised.

The person lowers their expectations before the system even needs to say no.

This is a serious consequence of inaccessibility. It restricts not only the particular journey.

It can restrict the courage to live.

The Right Not to Be a Problem

People who need accommodation often become highly aware of other people’s reactions.

Is this taking too long?

Am I causing trouble?

Am I delaying everyone else?

The person may then begin to make themselves smaller. They avoid asking for assistance, decline activities, or accept inferior solutions.

Justice therefore also means having the right to need accommodation without being made into a social problem.

The community must be able to contain the fact that people need different amounts of time and space.

The additional space is not taken away from the community.

It is part of it.

Professional Responsibility

Accessibility is not only a matter for architects and politicians.

It is also a professional responsibility.

Drivers, teachers, social workers, healthcare staff, and public-service employees interpret rules in concrete situations. They can open or close possibilities.

This judgement must be grounded in knowledge of rights and disability.

A technical solution is worthless if staff do not know how to use it. A rule on participation is empty if no one gives people time to speak. An accessible building is not inclusive if the attitudes inside make people feel unwelcome.

Justice must therefore exist both in the system and in the encounter.

Accommodation as Practical Philosophy

Accommodation may appear to be a technical field.

Ramps, lifts, colour contrasts, forms, and deadlines.

But behind every solution lies a philosophical question:

For whom do we imagine society exists?

A ramp expresses the idea that different bodies belong.

Easy-to-understand language expresses the idea that comprehension should not be a privilege.

A flexible time arrangement expresses the idea that human rhythms vary.

Accommodation therefore makes values material.

It builds justice into the world.

When Economics Sets Limits

Accommodation sometimes costs money.

Buses must be adapted. Staff must receive training. Information must be produced in different formats. Services may need to spend more time.

Society has limited resources, and priorities are necessary.

But economic arguments are not neutral.

We must ask who bears the cost when accommodation is not provided.

The transport company may save money.

The wheelchair user loses the journey.

The school saves a staff position.

The pupil loses participation.

The municipality avoids an expense.

The family assumes the responsibility.

Failure to accommodate does not remove the cost.

It transfers it to people who often already carry a great deal.

What Is Reasonable?

Law and policy often use the term reasonable accommodation.

This suggests that society should make significant adjustments, though not every imaginable change regardless of consequence.

This is necessary.

But “reasonable” must not be judged only from the organisation’s perspective. It must also be assessed in light of what the absence of accommodation means for the person.

A small practical inconvenience for the service may be weighed against complete exclusion for the citizen.

The burdens are then distributed very unevenly.

Reasonableness therefore requires proportionality.

What does the measure cost?

What does failing to provide it cost?

And who pays the final price?

The Infrastructure of Freedom

We often think of freedom as a personal quality.

The free citizen chooses and acts.

But freedom requires infrastructure.

Roads, transport, information, buildings, technology, and services make action possible. When this infrastructure is inaccessible, freedom is limited.

This shows that freedom is not only individual.

It is political and material.

The bus, the ramp, and the bus stop are parts of the architecture of freedom.

They determine who can move through the shared world.

From Recipient to Fellow Citizen

When a person needs accommodation, they may easily be viewed as a recipient of help.

But the citizenship perspective reminds us of something else.

They already have a place in society.

Accommodation is not provided to invite a stranger into the community. It makes it possible for a fellow citizen to use what is already supposed to be shared.

This changes the tone.

From charity to rights.

From assistance to participation.

From gratitude to citizenship.

The Accessible World

An accessible world is not a world without differences.

It is a world prepared for them.

It expects people to move, sense, understand, and communicate in different ways. It does not make one kind of body or one cognitive style the measure of everyone.

Such a world often becomes better for people who do not identify as disabled.

The lift is used by parents with prams.

Clear information helps the tourist.

The bench helps the tired person.

The quiet area helps the person who is overloaded.

Accessibility shows that human variation is not an exception found at the margins.

It is the starting point itself.

When the Bus Stops

A just bus journey may appear to be a small matter.

The ramp opens. The luggage is moved. The driver allows enough time. The man boards and travels with everyone else.

Nothing dramatic happens.

That is precisely the point.

The greatest success of accommodation is often that the event becomes ordinary. The person does not need to explain, wait for a special arrangement, or become visible as a problem.

He is a passenger.

Not first and foremost a wheelchair user.

Not a disruption in the timetable.

A passenger on the way somewhere.

Justice at the Bus Stop

When the bus does not stop for everyone, it is not only transport that fails.

The idea of a shared society fails as well.

Nussbaum’s philosophy teaches us that freedom must be judged through people’s real opportunities. A right that cannot be exercised is incomplete. A service that cannot be reached is not equal.

Just accommodation therefore means more than removing isolated obstacles.

It means building society around the recognition that human beings are different, yet equal in dignity.

Some need a ramp.

Some need more time.

Some need support to understand or express themselves.

None of these needs makes a person less free or less worthy.

They simply show what freedom requires in order to become real.

The just bus is not the one that treats every passenger identically.

It is the one that ensures that everyone can actually travel.

And the just society is not the one that merely opens the door.

It is the one that asks who is still left outside.

The just society is not the one that merely opens the door.

It is the one that asks who is still left outside.

This essay is based on my lecture notes on Martha Nussbaum, which I often used in my lectures for students in Social Work. The text is developed in a conversation with OpenAI/ChatGPT, which also made the illustration.