Riders with disabilities face roadblocks when finding public transportation

A new national database developed at the University of Michigan shows that none of the top 99 federally funded public transportation systems in the United States are easy for people with disabilities to use in four key areas of accommodation and accessibility.

The U-M Public Transit Accessibility Dashboard provides data that communities can use to identify barriers and build on strengths to make buses, trains and other forms of fixed-route public transit accessible to everyone.

Data documenting the accessibility of U.S. public transit systems has been sparse, not integrated nationally and rarely communicated in plain language, said Erica Twardzik, assistant professor at the U-M School of Kinesiology and director of the Center for Inclusive Mobility Environments.

Twardzik, first author of the study behind the project, said the dashboard aims to fill that gap. It evaluates accessibility among 99 U.S. public transit systems spanning 85 cities in the key areas of 1) adjacency (transit is nearby and can reach many destinations), 2) availability (frequency of public transit to meet demand), 3) affordability (average fare revenue per trip) and 4) acceptability (comfortable with the provider). 

Together, these four areas encompass the many parts of the travel experience, from finding information on a website to reaching a destination.

"For a rider with a disability, one barrier can make the entire trip impossible," Twardzik said. "That is why we designed the dashboard to look across multiple parts of the rider's experience, not just one feature like ramps or elevators. None of the transit systems we evaluated rated high on all measures of accessibility. This affects ridership and access for the disability community."

Where riders live may shape whether and how people with disabilities can plan for and use public transit, Twardzik said, and every city has room for improvement. The highest-performing cities overall were Washington, D.C.; Phoenix; and San Diego. The lowest-performing cities were Hampton, Virginia; Allentown, Pennsylvania; and Anchorage, Alaska.

The study examined three Michigan cities: Grand Rapids ranked 39th out of the 85 cities, Detroit ranked 50th and Flint ranked 71st.

The top-ranked cities performed well across several measures of accessibility, while the lowest-ranked cities performed poorly in one or more areas. The overall accessibility status, ranging from optimal to inadequate, emphasized the weakest link in the public transportation experience.

Public transportation is critical for people with disabilities, and the dashboard gives advocates, researchers and transit agencies easy access to data they can use to push for improvements, Twardzik said.

The dashboard was developed with input from disabled riders, community advocates, researchers and other stakeholders. Their feedback shaped its design, including features that allow users to compare cities, view maps and download data.

The National Institute on Aging and the National Cancer Institute, both part of the National Institutes of Health, supported the project. 

Co-authors are Jennifer Choi, Vincent Ader and Christina Kiser of the U-M School of Kinesiology and Kerri Pepperman of Michigan Creative.

Study: Development and Implementation of an Interactive Data Dashboard for Inclusive Public Transit: Design, Dissemination, and Community Engagement (DOI: 10.3390/disabilities6050081)

The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.