Transportation Workers’ Perspectives on ADA

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has reduced barriers to opportunities for people with disabilities since its initial passing in 1990. While the ADA serves to expand accessibility, many hurdles make meeting ADA requirements a challenge.

Research reveals that public agencies are still falling short of compliance minimums, which can be seen in insufficient transportation options and poorly maintained or missing infrastructure needed for travel. This results in people with disabilities facing barriers to daily life and opportunities.

In "Navigating ADA Compliance: How Practitioners' Experiences Reveal Challenges and Opportunities for Improving Accessibility of Transportation Infrastructure" (Journal of the American Planning Association, Vol. 91, No. 2) Molly Wagner, Manish Shirgaokar, Aditi Misra, and Wesley Marshall survey and interview transportation professionals about their experiences implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Riddled with challenges, they found that going above and beyond minimum compliance is either not considered or considered aspirational, even in the most progressive communities.

Key Challenges in ADA Implementation

Through surveys and interviews with transportation professionals, the authors identified themes in the obstacles to implementing the (ADA). Of note were the ways political priorities and organizational coordination can limit ADA in practice.

Decision-making is often influenced by funding or political motives rather than needs assessment or practitioner guidance. Limited guidance and educational resources were another frequently mentioned frustration.

Respondents described how a lack of direction and capacity limited their ability to implement accessible services. Professionals reinforced that more educational resources were needed for planning, community engagement, and infrastructure design.

However, the respondents were less aligned on whether the current guidance was easy to interpret. Lastly, the interviews and surveys showed how transportation professionals struggle to work with retrofits, new construction, and the required maintenance that ADA requires.

"Construction inspectors are shy about telling contractors to fix non-ADA-compliant new installations. There is too much "let it slide" and "it is close to compliant" that happens in the field. There is a lack of commitment/ understanding of why the regulations are important."
— Local government engineer

The authors encourage planners to prioritize improving access to transportation services and infrastructure located in the public right-of-way. An agency-by-agency approach to addressing the ADA is likely insufficient for effective system-wide change. The ADA requires funds, coordination of resources, and time to comply.

Technical and financial assistance should be provided to local governments, particularly those that do not have the resources to marshal in-house expertise. With support, local governments can prioritize programs that integrate accessibility into each part of the transportation life cycle to encourage institutional knowledge building toward implementing ADA.

Encouraging expanded educational resources and employee training is vital. The authors assert that creating resources for nontechnical audiences, including policymakers, planners, and public employees, will reinforce the importance of the ADA.

Advancing ADA Progress

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to accessibility, and funding alone cannot solve the backlog of ADA projects and inaccessibility issues across the United States. Individual actors and organizations can prioritize accessibility by turning challenges into opportunities for implementation. Education gaps are professional development opportunities.

Planners can create inclusive engagement opportunities for community members with disabilities to collaborate in the planning and design process. Continual feedback between people and planners can inform daily tasks and engineering plans and refine mobility assumptions.

The authors underscore the importance of developing ADA asset inventories for planners. Enforcing ADA asset inventory development in organizations may be an effective mechanism to increase ADA awareness and implementation downstream.

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