How Federal Infrastructure Funds Can Build More Accessible Transit

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as 61 million Americans live with some form of disability. Among those millions, one in five is blind or has a mobility disability. As such, nearly 30 million Americans travel less due to limited mobility, yet they disproportionately rely on public transit to get around.

Too often, investments in public transit have ignored the needs of its wide variety of riders. For example, most cities almost completely ignored wheelchair users until the late 1960s and early ‘70s. After demonstrations by disabled WW II veterans, Congress adopted the Architectural Barriers Act—a precursor to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. Today, ramps and curb cuts are ubiquitous in cities and towns of all sizes—and they benefit a range of users beyond those in a wheelchair like the young, the old, people pushing strollers and the temporarily disabled. 

For transit, the bipartisan infrastructure law signed into law by President Biden in November provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to right this wrong by funding projects that will improve accessibility to public transit. It’s critical that policymakers and transit agencies get it right and prioritize projects that incorporate the concept of universal design to create inherently accessible transit and better serve all riders. 

While universal design has been a key part of the accessible transit conversation in Europe for decades, there has been a groundswell of momentum towards embracing its principles in the United States in recent years. Most notably, the American Public Transportation Association published landmark guidelines in 2020 aimed at promoting equitable mobility services through universal design. Rather than targeting people without disabilities, universal design incorporates everyone’s needs. It’s more efficient, cost effective and equitable to ensure that users are able to move independently when possible rather than divide service into groups based on mobility. 

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act’s All Stations Accessibility Program, or ASAP, is a prime example of a funding opportunity that needs to be deployed with universal design in mind. ASAP makes possible capital improvements to upgrade legacy facilities that were previously outside agencies’ budgets through annual funding opportunities totaling $350 million for the next five years. Projects funded through ASAP and other BIL programs should help to develop transit systems that serve as many users as possible without the need for special accommodations.

With a focus on flexibility and the need to accommodate future changes in populations, universal design will not only broaden accessibility but also deliver long-term cost savings. Additionally, investing now will result in savings by reducing cost overruns for deferred maintenance, a persistent challenge for public transit agencies. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation estimates, there is a $105.1 billion backlog in deferred maintenance across public transit systems. And building fully accessible transit vehicles and facilities is often prohibitively expensive.