English Language · English

Read the passage carefully and answer the question that follows: Cities often speak in signs that many cannot see. For blind and low-vision citizens, movement is negotiated through sound, touch, rhythm, and memory: the hiss of buses, the seam where tiles change underfoot, a vendor’s call echoing off a wall that confirms direction. Official designs claim inclusivity—tactile paving, audible signals, Braille on elevator buttons—yet daily experience reveals how quickly inclusion becomes attenuated by poor upkeep or decorative zeal. A raised strip ends at a flowerbed installed for a festival; an audio beacon is silenced after complaints about 'noise'; a ramp, proudly photographed at inauguration, narrows into a staircase a week later. Digital life repeats these patterns. Screen readers are powerful only when websites respect structure—alt text, headings, labels, and focus order—but procurement rewards appearance over semantics, and deadlines encourage glossy interfaces that trap the keyboard like a cul-de-sac. Optical character recognition reads a menu flawlessly in a lab and fails on a crumpled bill under tungsten light. Meanwhile, 'smart' surveillance classifies bodies with confidence that exceeds its fairness: models trained on tidy data sets penalize the unpredictable choreography of canes and guide dogs, flagging 'loitering' where there is only the tactful slowness of safety. Yet inclusion is neither charity nor ornament; it is infrastructure. A bus stop that announces routes aloud helps everyone when the screen fogs in rain. A map with raised lines is a public document, not a niche product. Training frontline staff to describe surroundings precisely costs less than the lawsuits that follow confusion. When budgets squeeze, maintenance becomes the first cut, and compliance retreats into plaques. But durability—the difference between a trial and a right—emerges from routines: testing with blind users, fixing broken beacons before repainting kerbs, and publishing alt-text standards that procurement cannot waive. There is also a moral geometry at stake. Inspiration is easy, respect is harder. Respect does not convert people into symbols; it follows their lead on priorities. If the city listens, the grammar of streets changes: crossings chirp at audibility rather than novelty; benches align with desire paths instead of renderings; and policy pilots include the people who will use them. Inclusion, then, is not the end of a checklist but the start of a habit—one that measures success not by photos of ribbon-cuttings, but by the quiet confidence with which a stranger can cross a road they cannot see. Which of the following is directly supported by the passage?