As someone who has to push a stroller around these days, I’ve come to appreciate how much improved accessibility for disabled people means improved accessibility for everyone.
This is one of the more subtle reasons I dislike the euphemism "differently abled". It makes it sound like accessibility measures are at the expense of regular people's comfort, but that could not be further from the truth. There are some hoops society wants all people to jump through, and disabled people cannot jump through a subset of those. Accessibility measures means removing hoops people are forced to jump through. Everyone benefits from fewer hoops.
Curb cuts are wonderful all around - in addition to the obvious benefits for wheelchair bound people, they are great for strollers, deliveries, people with reduced mobility who can walk but have trouble negotiating full curbs, and just as a guideline for helping people with full mobility cross the street safely.
For people with reduced mobility who can walk, slopes are often worse than steps. It is common for old people to lose sensation. This includes the ability to be confident of the angle of the ankle, the ability to sense pressure under the foot, and the ability to quickly sense motion via the inner ear. The slope can make these people tip right over, falling and then breaking bones. It can be fatal.
Navigating my city’s public transport with a stroller also gave me new appreciation of how difficult it must be for people in a wheelchair. There are only a handful of step free stations in my city.
Came here to mention the stroller thing. Making cities more accessible to wheelchairs has had a lot of happy side effects.