I often wish public places would do what WalMart has done, and simply make scooters available for rent/use. If public attractions won't, someone could make a small fortune at rental places renting them out.
They also could be rentable at auto-rental places, if they aren't already, and shouldn't they?!?!?!
My FIL used a scooter, but how would that have helped him once the plane landed and he wanted to set off on an explore of, say, Washington DC?
The ADA most serves the wheelchair-bound population because that's who was available to lobby for it when it was passed. But there are still all kinds of places I can't go conveniently that are labeled ADA-compliant (a previous Mudcat discussion). I have to prioritize my walking on a daily basis in light of this so yes, at WalMart, you will see me on a scooter that I can hop off of quite easily to walk well to my car. But a whole day of that would be out of the question, given the barriers yet to be managed logistically.
But having scooters more readily available would be a good start. Sure my friend Ed can hobble to my van and climb laboriously (and safely) into it, but once we get to WalMart, even that independent man is not dumb enough or stubborn enough to ignore a vacant scooter placed at his disposal. Seeing it takes the verbal side out of it completely and he just hops right on.
If there were more of them lying about you can bet more people would be hopping on them.
Soon we will have to deal with millions of people using walkers, at ADA-compliant places where walkers just will not suffice. Airports knew this, and that's where the trolleys came from that zoom thru the concourses, but the rest of the world has been slow to catch onto that one.