Improving Transportation Options for Disability Communities
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
What is the Americans with Disabilities Act?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal civil rights that provides protections to individuals with disabilities-similar to rights protected based on race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, state and local government services, and telecommunications.
What is accessibility?
Accessibility means individuals with disabilities have the same or substantially similar use and enjoyment of goods and services that are enjoyed by people without disabilities.
Accessibility is not limited to physical access; it also includes access to effective communication.
The ADA has clearly changed the landscape of public transit; as a national disability organization recently noted:
“As a consistent theme in most transit systems across the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has spawned great improvements.... As a result of the ADA, the past decade has brought about real improvements in access to transportation for people with disabilities, and access to public transportation has improved significantly since implementation of the ADA transportation provisions."
Image: The City of Raleigh provides transportation services for people with disabilities. GoRaleigh Access (formerly Accessible Raleigh Transportation) programs enable eligible persons to access public transportation.
99 transportation systems exist across the state of North Carolina, and 83%of its vehicles qualify as ADA accessible; however, qualifications do not take into account the geographical coverage of the system, hours of operation, timliness of the trip, or ease of access.
Source for information above:
The ADA and Public Places: Access, Accessibility and Advocacy,Disability Rights North Carolina.
NCD (National Council on Disability). Livable Communities for Adults with Disabilities. Washington, DC: NCD.