Disability to Stability

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TRINITY COLLEGE
Graduate Thesis
Disability to Stability
Using technology to improve transportation equity and independence
Matthew J. Clyburn
B.A., Central Connecticut State University, 2011
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts in Public Policy
Spring 2015

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Contents
History of disability policy ..........................................................................................5
Early U.S. disability policy............................................................................................5
From poverty relief to civil rights..................................................................................7
The Americans with Disabilities Act...........................................................................10
Legacy of the ADA......................................................................................................12
Challenges Remain.....................................................................................................16
Disability stigma ..........................................................................................................17
Financial instability......................................................................................................18
Fragmented solutions...................................................................................................20
Considering new alternatives....................................................................................22
Alternatives fail to address fundamental issues...........................................................24
Transportation: A new focus ....................................................................................25
Why focus on transportation? ......................................................................................27
The current state of transportation for disabled people ...............................................29
Administering paratransit services...............................................................................30
Paratransit challenges for service providers ................................................................31
Paratransit challenges for riders...................................................................................33
Attempts to improve paratransit...................................................................................35
From minimum standards to equity.............................................................................36
Technology as a catalyst for reform.........................................................................39
Demand-responsive paratransit....................................................................................39
Crowd-sourced paratransit...........................................................................................42
Autonomous vehicles...................................................................................................45
The Connecticut proposal .........................................................................................52
Pilot proposal ...............................................................................................................54
Cost of implementation................................................................................................55
Cost of operation..........................................................................................................56
Overcoming arguments against the pilot .....................................................................58
For further exploration.................................................................................................60
Conclusion ..................................................................................................................61
References...................................................................................................................63
Appendix.....................................................................................................................71

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Disability to Stability: Using technology to improve
transportation equity and independence
Introduction
People with disabilities have a physical or mental condition that limits their movements,
senses, or activities. They are wounded veterans, wheelchair-bound former athletes,
developmentally delayed young adults, and more. Compared to their non-disabled peers, people
with disabilities tend to have low incomes and employment rates. They also have high housing,
medical and transportation expenses because of the individualized support they require. The
median earned income for disabled people in 2013 was one-third the median earned income of
non-disabled people (Boursiquot & Brault, 2013). In 2009, the employment rate for disabled
people was half the employment rate of non-disabled people (Brault, 2010). In 2013 in
Connecticut, one-way transportation for people with disabilities cost ten times more than a one-
way trip on traditional public transit (Maloney, 2013).
In short, people with disabilities have too many expenses and too few opportunities to
secure income. This is problematic for three reasons. First, increased health, housing and
transportation expenses cause disabled people to rely perpetually on government assistance—a

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logistical burden on institutions and a financial burden on American taxpayers. Second, low rates
of employment and income remove labor and economic activity from the market. Finally, the
financial instability caused by underemployment, as well as the fact of being underemployed,
deprives disabled people of the opportunity to participate in all the benefits society has to offer.
This is a crisis and we need to deal with it now. Without reform, employment rates and
income will remain low while the burden on taxpayers will remain high. Letting present trends
continue does not improve the financial security or economic well-being of people with
disabilities. If policymakers do nothing about these issues, the trust fund for disability payments
administered by the Social Security Administration will run out of money in 2016 (Ohlemacher,
2012). These outcomes are counter-intentional to the intended effects of existing federal assistance
programs. Therefore, the goal of any new public policies to support people with disabilities should
focus on increasing their financial stability by increasing their income security and decreasing their
expenses while improving their independence. Ideally, disability policy will augment
transportation equity: the ability of disabled people to move freely and participate in the social
fabric of society.
In this thesis, I will how show how driverless cars and other new technologies can
ameliorate long-standing problems faced by disabled individuals and improve their access to
equitable transportation. I will begin by highlighting the intentions and institutions involved in
creating public policy for people with disabilities through a brief history of disability policy in the
United States. Second, I will consider the context for current disability policy by exploring the
Americans with Disabilities Act and related federal programs. Third, I will consider the remaining
financial and social plight of individuals with disabilities, and the link between their instability and
an insufficient transportation system that limits their ability to live independently. Fourth, I will

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consider how elements of the sharing economy and emerging autonomous navigation technology
could help address the challenges left unaddressed by existing disability policy. Finally, I will
explore the preliminary details of a pilot proposal for Connecticut that would bring self-driving
cars to disabled people to improve their financial stability and transportation equity.
History of disability policy
The first step in assessing the issues facing people with disabilities is to examine the
prominent policies affecting their daily lives, including the motivation behind implementing these
policies, the intended effects, and remaining areas for improvement.
Early U.S. disability policy
At times the “largest, poorest, least employed and least educated minority in America”
(Griffin, 1991), people with disabilities have been socially and, at times, systematically segregated
from the mainstream. People have excluded disabled Americans from society—both physically,
through imprisonment and institutionalization, and socially, through poor treatment from
individuals and communities. Efforts to turn the tide on this cultural segregation began in 1817,
not far from the campus of Trinity College. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet opened a new type of
institution in Hartford for the disabled: a school for the deaf. Until that time, immediate families
and a small group of social reformers had taken care of individuals in this underserved population.
Gallaudet’s school for the deaf was a formal attempt to coordinate the otherwise scattered efforts
of these reformers in light of insubstantial government assistance (Griffin, 1991).
Support for institutions and policies assisting the disabled existed only at the local level for
many years. In 1854, President Franklin Pierce vetoed legislation that would have allocated funds
to public mental hospitals. Pierce wrote in a message to Congress:

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I readily and, I trust, feelingly acknowledge the duty incumbent on us all as men and
citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our duties, to provide for those who, in
the mysterious order of Providence, are subject to want and to disease of body or mind; but
I [cannot] find any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government the
great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To do so would, in my
judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of the Constitution and subversive of the whole
theory upon which the Union of these States is founded (Pierce, 1854).
This argument against federal intervention in the care of disabled Americans persisted. It
took the homecoming of disabled World War I veterans to finally thrust the issue into the national
spotlight when, for the first time, the federal government offered a formal social safety net for
disabled people. This federal government offering, a program for job training and employment
assistance, was initiated by the Smith-Fess Veterans’ Rehabilitation Act of 1920 (Griffin, 1991).
Early federal support for disabled people was limited to legislative efforts to reduce poverty
in general. Programs initiated by the Federal Board of Vocational Education and the Social
Security Act of 1935 ensured vocational training, counseling, and financial support for disabled
workers (Griffin, 1991). It was disabled persons’ lack of income, however, that acted as the driving
force for these new supports—not their disability. These programs’ effect on people with
disabilities was something of a fringe benefit, as the primary goal of these efforts was helping the
elderly and impoverished (Achenbaum, 1986). This resulted in an indirect impact on disabled
individuals. It helped shine a light on a population that was more likely to be unemployed, poor,
elderly, and alone, but this proved to be an ineffective mechanism for gathering support on a more
permanent basis. Politicians needed to develop more policies, narrowly tailored to the needs of
disabled individuals, in order to drive meaningful change (Griffin, 1991).

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From poverty relief to civil rights
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, individuals formed nongovernmental organizations to
advocate on behalf of disabled people. One such organization founded an independent publication
in 1958, the Rehabilitation Gazette, to highlight important disability issues and provide a forum
for advocacy (Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Independent Living Management,
2002). The National Association for Down Syndrome formed in 1960 and worked toward better
public policy for disabled people in local, state, and federal government (National Association for
Down Syndrome, 2015).
This swell of support for people with disabilities helped longtime advocates shift their
arguments from a focus on poverty relief to a focus on safeguarding civil rights. Several victories
helped drive the momentum, most prominently an amendment to the Social Security Act that
extended benefits to disabled people younger than 50 years old (Rehabilitation Research &
Training Center on Independent Living Management, 2002). Disability rights advocates continued
their work by lobbying lawmakers to amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include protections
for individuals with disabilities, but comprehensive action never materialized. Nevertheless, the
Civil Rights Act played a pivotal role in changing the conversation in the disability rights
movement; the dialogue evolved from services and supports to rights and protections. “The
disabled saw their cause increasingly as an issue of equal opportunity, not rehabilitation,” scholar
R.D. Griffin writes. “There was a recognition…that society needed to do more than provide
programs. Advocates saw the need for an attitudinal change” (Griffin, 1991).
In addition to this attitudinal change, the disabled population needed changes to the
physical landscape. Cooperation between the executive branch and Congress – motivated in large
part by the President’s Panel on Mental Retardation, the President’s Committee on Employment

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of the Handicapped, and the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation – resulted in several
collaborative efforts (Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Independent Living
Management, 2002). The Architectural Barriers Act of 1968 required full accessibility for the
disabled to buildings funded or leased by the federal government. Similarly, the Urban Mass
Transportation Act of 1970 required accessibility for disabled persons on all public transportation
services. Federal efforts also influenced education in support of young Americans with disabilities.
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 guaranteed individualized, specialized
education programs, and provided a platform for parents of disabled children to dispute insufficient
programs with local schools (Griffin, 1991).
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, however, was the true turning point for advocacy on behalf
of disabled Americans. Under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the law
established the Office of the Handicapped, an agency now known as the National Council on
Disability under the Department of Health and Human Services. This newly created department
helped shift the concentration of funding from job training and rehabilitation to programs that
would transition disabled individuals to independent living. Three sections of the bill have proved
to be especially impactful for Americans with disabilities. Section 501 dictates that federal
agencies cannot discriminate in the course of employment or potential employment of people with
disabilities. The mechanism for this provision is a form of affirmative action, and citizens can
petition their regional agency’s Equal Employment Opportunity Office to report violations.
Section 503 dictates that contractors and subcontractors of the Federal government with contracts
of more than $10,000 cannot discriminate in the course of employment or potential employment
of people with disabilities. The mechanism for this provision is a form of affirmative action that
oversees and promotes more representation of disabled people in the workforce. Section 504

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guaranteed broader civil rights guarantees to Americans with disabilities by providing reasonable
accommodations that could afford them equal access to any service or program that received
financial assistance from the federal government (Griffin, 1991).
The broad reach of Section 504, in particular, helped establish civil rights guarantees for
disabled individuals as it relates to the federal government (Griffin, 1991). Passage of the law
ensured equal access for Americans with disabilities everywhere federal funding was present. This
included airports, schools, public libraries, universities, and more. Consequently, handicapped
parking spots, ramps, and curb cuts became an integral part of any construction project that
received federal funding. Inevitably, these changes even spilled over to projects funded entirely
by the private sector (Griffin, 1991). Today, you would be hard-pressed to find any manner of
construction, publicly funded or otherwise, lacking these design features to allow accessibility for
the disabled.
Provisions of four federal laws during the 1980s helped address smaller issues facing the
disabled community. The Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act oversaw conditions of
confinement to ensure compliance with federal standards. The Air Carrier Access Act prohibited
discrimination in air transportation. The Fair Housing Act prohibited housing discrimination.
Finally, the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act guaranteed physical access
to polling places (U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, 2009). These pieces of
legislation were successful in addressing specific public policy concerns of the disability rights
movement, but advocates sought a broader solution.
In the late 1980s, the National Council on Disability began lobbying to promote new
legislation that would address all of the challenges faced by Americans with disabilities. This focus
was to advocate for a federal law prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities.

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Connecticut once again played a role in turning the tide. The first draft, created in 1987 by then-
Senator and soon-to-be Governor Weicker from Connecticut, prompted nonprofits and civil rights
groups to join the movement along with disability rights organizations. These groups argued that
keeping disabled Americans from full inclusion in everyday activities effectively barred them from
full inclusion in society. These advocates argued that the history of unequal access for people with
disabilities bore itself out as a civil rights issue that federal legislation needed to address. The U.S.
Senate received the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1988. The bill addressed many of
these concerns by prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities in many areas of
public life. By 1990, the Senate and House of Representatives passed the bill with bipartisan
support. On July 26, 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities
Act of 1990 into law (Johnson, 2007).
The Americans with Disabilities Act
The Americans with Disabilities Act explicitly prohibits discrimination based on disability
in the areas of employment, transportation, public accommodations, telecommunications, and state
and local government. The ADA defined disability as a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits one or more life activities. Covered individuals may be people currently living
with a disability, a person with a history of such a disability, or a person perceived by others as
living with a disability (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990). The ADA contains five major
provisions.
Title I requires all employers with more than 15 employees to provide disabled persons
equal access to employment-related opportunities. This section prohibits discrimination in
recruiting, hiring, promotion, training, compensation, and other benefits of employment. Title I
further restricts employers from asking questions about a potential employee’s disability before

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extending an offer of employment. This section also requires that employers accommodate any
known mental or physical disabilities of people otherwise qualified to perform the essential duties
of the job, unless it results in undue hardship (U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division,
2009).
Title II extends equal access to all programs, services, and activities provided by state and
local governments for Americans with disabilities. Furthermore, state and local governments must
adhere to specific architectural standards for all official buildings that will provide reasonable
accommodation to disabled persons. Title II further prohibits discrimination against disabled
persons in the provision of public transportation services, including but not limited to buses, public
rail transit, subways, and Amtrak. Additionally, transit agencies must provide services called
“paratransit” wherever they operate fixed-route public transportation services. Paratransit is a
curb-to-curb transportation service for people who are unable to use regular transit systems
independently.
Title III prohibits exclusion, segregation, and unequal treatment at any public
accommodation. Public accommodations include, but are not limited to, restaurants, retail stores,
hotels, movie theaters, private schools, convention centers, doctors’ offices, homeless shelters,
transportation depots, zoos, funeral homes, day care centers, recreation facilities, and private
transportation (U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, 2009). Title III also requires
adherence to specific architectural standards at locations of public accommodations, warehouses,
and factories to ensure accessibility. This section also requires fair administration of courses and
exams to people with disabilities.
Title IV ensures the availability of accessible communications systems for people with
hearing and speech disabilities 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. This provision guarantees access

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to communication help from a third party assistant and closed captioning for all federally funded
public service announcements.
One U.S. Supreme Court case led to a revision of the ADA. In the case, Toyota Motor
Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams (2002), justices interpreted the “major life activity”
definition of disability in a conservative manner. This narrowed definition diminished a disabled
person’s ability to challenge their employer in court for failing to accommodate a limitation that
affected a specific activity at work. In 2008, Congress amended the ADA to combat this narrower
definition and broaden the scope of the law. The amendment expanded the concept of major life
activities to include work requirements. Researchers believe the amendment resulted in increased
pressure on employers to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled individuals and an
increase in the overall number of Americans protected by the ADA (Rozalski et al., 2010). This
clarification helps people with different classes of disabilities receive accommodations.
Legacy of the ADA
According to a 2010 examination of court cases related to the law, the ADA has largely
withstood judicial scrutiny aside from the case that led to its amendment. “Its intent has been
uncontroverted,” the authors write, “and there have been no challenges to its constitutionality. The
courts have clarified that the ADA applies to a large variety of places where planners and designers
might provide professional guidance, including buildings, environments, landscaping, state-owned
facilities, transport stations and vehicles, ships, golf courses, and all public and privately owned
places of public accommodation.” The researchers go on to call the ADA “admirably enlightened”
(Mazumdar and Geis, 2010, p. 316).
Nevertheless, the ADA has not been without challenges and critics. One of the barriers to
successful implementation in the case of disability policy is in the definition of disability itself.

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Definitions of disability have ranged from mild symptoms of illness like faintness and fatigue to
debilitating physical conditions that specifically limit accessibility (Griffin, 1991). The definition
offered by the Americans with Disabilities Act itself is somewhat vague, though the 2008
amendment improved it substantially.
Another criticism focuses on the possibility that the ADA is overly broad. Business leaders
that preferred to narrow the ADA’s scope argue that the law is unreasonably vague. Arguments
against the ‘reasonable accommodations’ clause began before the act was signed into law.
“Beginning in 1992, [critics of the ADA] complained about the impreciseness of its call for
‘reasonable accommodation’ of disabled persons, or its assertion that ‘undue hardship’ would not
be required of those having to make the accommodations.” On the other hand, supporters have
argued that the judicial review process has clarified this ambiguity sufficiently. In fact, they argue
writers of the ADA preferred and intended this approach, as they decided courts would be “better
able to define the standards on a case-by-case basis than [Congress] could do in one fell swoop.”
In other words, legislators concluded, “a fixed standard could not possibly be applied fairly in all
situations” (Griffin, 1991).
Finally, detractors believe the ADA places undue burden on businesses. Some academics
and political commentators have argued that the law is much more than a civil rights law. Weekly
Standard contributor Andrew Ferguson wrote, “The ADA is a building code, a public transit code,
a private transit code, a workplace code, a food-handling code . . . and it is still more than this.
Thanks to the ADA, the federal government, through the courts or regulatory mechanisms, can
now dictate everything from how wide hallways are in a private office to where you can display
merchandise in your store” (Ferguson, 1995). Opponents argue that the ADA is the largest
expansion of federal power to date, and largely unfunded to boot. Furthermore, opponents believe

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disability rights advocates unfairly reject their constructive public policy critiques simply because
the ADA is a piece of civil rights legislation. To question the merits of the law, critics say, is
perceived as questioning the merits of disabled Americans themselves.
These criticisms have led to mixed results in interpreting the legacy of the ADA. While
detractors have resisted implementation and squabbled over terms and definitions, early polling
showed support from members of the public. Ninety-five percent of respondents supported the
ADA provision prohibiting employment discrimination. Ninety-six percent of respondents
supported the provision barring discrimination against disabled people on the part of restaurants,
hotels, theatres, stores, and museums. Eighty-nine percent of respondents said the high costs of
implementing the ADA would be worthwhile because they will “open up new paths of
participation for disabled people” (National Organization on Disability, 1991). Many more
applauded the law as a success. “The ADA is a market sensitive civil rights act,” wrote Edward
Bennett, former co-chair of the ACLU's National Disability Rights Task Force. “It explicitly
permits businesses to spend only what they can afford. It requires ‘reasonable’ expenditures as it
balances legitimate cost concerns with the ideal of integration. According to the Job
Accommodation Network, fully one-third of workplace accommodations cost nothing; another
third averages less than $500” (Bennett, 1995). Proponents have viewed the ADA as a success,
too, because it shifts the definition of accommodation. “All buildings ‘accommodate’ someone.
Architects design structures to accommodate those who typically use them. The ADA simply
insists that we accommodate everyone, not just those who walk or see” (Bennett, 1995).
Particularly in the area of employment, some policy scholars have suggested that ADA
detractors over-interpret and over-broaden the law to justify their opposition. The President’s

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Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities has worked to dispel the widely held belief
that ADA requires business to employ unqualified individuals.
No unqualified job applicant or employee with a disability can claim employment
discrimination under the ADA. Employees or job applicants must meet all the necessary
requirements of the job and perform the essential functions of the job with or without
reasonable accommodation. No accommodation must be provided if it would result in an
undue hardship on the employer (Worsnop, 1996).
This back-and-forth debate over the ADA’s legacy points to a lack of consensus on what disability
policy should look like, how it should be funded, and who should act as the stewards of
implementation. Although the ADA was ripe with good intentions, it was a civil rights law with
few mechanisms for enforcing the intended outcomes. Much like the Civil Rights Act of 1964,
many remaining barriers needed policy that is more prescriptive. For the Civil Rights Act, that
action came in the form of the Voting Rights Act of 1965; with the ADA, it never materialized.
Several federal programs attempted to address these gaps by influencing the financial
security of people with disabilities. The federal government administers four major programs that
assist people with disabilities under the Social Security Act: Medicare, Medicaid, the Social
Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program, and the Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
program; the former two are health programs that provide noncash medical benefits and the latter
two pay cash benefits to people with disabilities. SSDI is not means-tested and participants must
have contributed to the program through payroll taxes from previous employment. SSI is means-
tested and does not require previous employment (U.S. Social Security Administration, 2005). In
this way, SSDI is a social insurance program while SSI is a social welfare program. However, in
recent decades, data from the Social Security Administration has shown that a large proportion of
SSDI beneficiaries remain in the program for life. To some, this has caused SSDI to evolve beyond
the reach of a typical social insurance program (Chambless et al., 2011).

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Welfare reforms, particularly those imposed by the federal government in 1996, attempted
to mitigate this problem. One federal program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF),
helps families with a disabled head of household obtain temporary cash assistance until they can
return to work. This program was supposed to address perceived abuses within Aid to Families
with Dependent Children, a previous welfare program. Again, however, the program resulted in
far more permanent benefit recipients than originally intended (Nadel, 2003). Critics have said the
same about SSI. In short, the safety net that is supposed to offer financial security can often be the
cause of ongoing problems. These programs limit the success of disabled individuals by regulating
their incomes and then taking away their supports once they reach a reasonable level of stability
(Turkewitz & Linderman, 2012).
Challenges Remain
Unfortunately, federal programs under the Social Security Act did not improve the
challenges left unaddressed by the ADA. I argue this is a result of fragmented implementation
strategies. When the federal government asserted a preemptive approach to disability policy, they
forced themselves and their counterparts in state and local government to implement policies
unfamiliar to their traditional roles in the federalist system. In its effort to protect disabled
individuals from discrimination across the country, the ADA diminished state and local
governments’ authority to devise their own solutions to the disability policy issue. High-level
bureaucrats in the federal government were suddenly required to deal with ground-level, front-
line implementation issues, such as determining the types of accommodations to provide for
disabled individuals on buses, in buildings, and on telecommunications systems. At the same time,
the ADA forced state and local governments, who are not accustomed to implementing civil rights
policies, to provide financial assistance to individuals and organizations to aid in the removal of

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discriminatory barriers. When these organizations were required to go outside of both their
statutory roles and their institutional experience, they simply were not prepared to succeed.
Institutions inside and outside of government implemented an amalgamation of protections
and programs limited by their roles and experiences. This failed attempt to implement disability
policy left several gaps: ongoing stigma, financial instability, and fragmented solutions.
Disability stigma
Cultural stigma associated with disabled individuals is pervasive despite the ADA. As early
as 1969, Wolf Wolfensberger recognized the ways disability stigma exists and persists. Despite
new protections and supports in place at the time, the public still classified disabled people as
deviant, sick, subhuman, menacing, objects of pity, and burdens of charity (Wolfensberger, 1969).
This coexistence of evolving public policy and continuing stigma highlights a problem that
remains today: people support government action on disability issues, but few make the effort to
have personal connections or regular interaction with members of this population (National
Organization on Disability, 1991). Eliminating this stigma and promoting more inclusion is an
enormous, slow-going task; one more rooted in culture than policy, and therefore not easily tackled
by legislative efforts.
Members of the public sometimes confuse a disabled individual’s inability to achieve
financial stability with an unwillingness to work, thereby categorizing them as a member of the
‘unworthy poor’ and the stigma that comes along with that classification. This further perpetuates
poverty and increasingly ties benefits to adverse health diagnoses rather than the social and
environmental factors that truly define disability (Hansen et al., 2014). Subsequently, many
scholars have observed a dichotomy between the two ways of defining disability: the
social/environmental model, which recognizes the profound importance of social and physical

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environments to people with disabilities; and the medical model, which categorizes disability as a
biological impairment that prohibits full participation in society (Percy, 1993). The problems with
the medical model are numerous, yet all of the federal programs aimed at increasing employment
and reducing poverty among people with disabilities are rooted in this outdated definition. This
model encourages disabled individuals to ‘define themselves down’ because the only way to
continue receiving SSI benefits is to demonstrate that they are unable to work (Turkewitz &
Linderman, 2012). This environment has kept people with disabilities ensnared in poverty because
they must exclude themselves from employment to acquire suitable financial assistance (Stapleton
et al., 2006).
Financial instability
The ADA and Social Security Act have been somewhat successful in reducing the impact
of traditional barriers to inclusion, but threats to the financial stability of disabled people still exist.
Results of one study suggest the ADA accommodated disabled people in very narrow, specific
ways following passage of the ADA, but forced them to lose accommodations in other ways.
Furthermore, these individuals gained helpful ADA provisions, but at the expense of lower
compensation (Charles, 2004).
As a result, people with disabilities continue to face lower levels of education, employment,
average income and wealth (Palmer, 2011). They are less likely to satisfy the requirements of
public education and far less likely to pursue higher education, significantly diminishing their odds
of specializing in a career field (McMenamin, 2013). In 2009, 35 percent of disabled people over
the age of 16 had a job, compared to the 72 percent employment rate of non-disabled people over
the age of 16 (Brault, 2010). The median annual earned income for disabled people in 2013 was
$19,735, while the median annual earned income for non-disabled people was $30,285 (Boursiquot

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& Brault, 2013). According to the American Community Survey, an estimated 28 percent of
disabled people over 21 were living below the poverty line in 2011, while an estimated 12 percent
of non-disabled people over 21 were living below the poverty line (Erickson et al., 2013).
Another problem is the way we measure financial stability when it comes to people with
disabilities. Many studies only look at poverty rates and average income, but do not consider the
money spent by public and private sector agencies to serve this population (Palmer, 2011). This
observation prompts a question about the major expenses left unaddressed by social welfare
programs. One prominent example is the major logistical and financial challenges of providing
individualized transportation to people with disabilities as required by the ADA. In 2011, for
example, the State of Connecticut dedicated $25,565,960 to addressing this need (Connecticut
Public Transportation Commission, 2009).
An additional layer of complication comes from the entangled nature of disability and
poverty. Disabled persons face compounded issues when it comes to income. Disabled people are
subject to higher rates of poverty and lower incomes, but impoverished low-income people are
also at a higher risk of becoming disabled. This sensitivity to changing circumstances subjects
people with disabilities to perpetual fear of loss because they are always a step away from
instability. A minor injury, fewer scheduled hours at work, or an unexpectedly high utility bill
could throw an individual’s life into chaos.
Neither the current slate of income assistance programs nor the implementation of the ADA
accomplished the goals of increasing employment, reducing poverty, or augmenting stability
among disabled Americans. Regardless of how we want to address this crisis, the trust fund for
disability payments administered by the Social Security Administration is expected to run out of
money sometime in 2016 (Ohlemacher, 2012). Without reform, employment rates and income will

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remain low and the burden on taxpayers will increase in the wake of program bankruptcy. Though
it is widely understood, it is important to reiterate this point: these outcomes are counter-intentional
to the goal of federal assistance programs for people with disabilities. Letting present trends
continue does not improve the financial security or economic well-being of people with
disabilities.
The economic argument for improving these circumstances is clear. The President’s
Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities reported that the federal government
“spends 40 times more money to support [unemployed] people with disabilities…than it spends to
assist them to prepare for or find employment.” Furthermore, “the lack of labor-force participation
[by] people with disabilities costs our nation’s economy over $200 billion annually” (Worsnop,
1996).
Fragmented solutions
The current policy approach to people with disabilities focuses almost exclusively on
antidiscrimination, which fragments solutions by addressing issues in narrow policy vacuums.
Employers have experienced some difficulty complying with the law as it relates to individuals
with disabilities, particularly in the area of retrofitting existing structures and equipment for full
compliance with the ADA. While private businesses generally support removing barriers to people
with disabilities, they have the most difficulty with costs of implementation (Percy, 2001).
Disabled individuals often face numerous barriers to employment that the law simply does
not address. For example, an individual attempting to dissolve these barriers can face complex
challenges that require services and programs from more than one agency. “Each program has its
own eligibility requirements,” a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report stated, “and
applicants must often establish eligibility separately because no effective mechanism exists to

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promote or ensure coordination.” This ‘jumping through multiple hoops’ phenomenon can create
new barriers to employment, which creates even more barriers to full participation in society
(United States Government Accountability Office, 2010, p. 3). Researchers suggest that employers
and service providers simply do not know how to gather information about employing people with
disabilities. As a result, employers and disabled job seekers are stuck in a vicious cycle where
neither party feels they have the ability to participate in a system that would improve outcomes
(Hall and Parker, 2010).
At the state and local level, bureaucrats have been improperly educated about the major
provisions and requirements of the ADA (Switzer, 2001). This lack of information has resulted in
several major obstacles to full compliance. While the federal government had completed a number
of implementation tasks by the mid-1990s, a lack of coordinated planning hindered progress
toward the intended outcomes of the ADA. There was no complete strategic plan addressing
enforcement, technical assistance, and public awareness on the front lines, and scarce examples
of institutions working together to ensure successful implementation (West, 1996).
In Connecticut alone, people with disabilities are served by countless governmental
agencies: the departments of Developmental Services, Transportation, Housing, Education, and
Social Services; the Office of Protection & Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities; and the
Connecticut Council on Developmental Disabilities. These agencies have contracts with more than
250 service providers in the private sector, ranging from private citizens to regional chapters of
The Arc of Connecticut, a privately held disabilities services firm with organizations around the
globe (Department of Developmental Services, 2015). This approach does not adequately address
the fundamental issues faced by this population. This methodology has created a “patchwork of
protections” that does not work cooperatively to promote reform (Satz, 2008, p. 541).

22
Considering new alternatives
How do we address these challenges? In light of the recent political dialogue about creating
jobs and getting people ‘back to work,’ many have called for action on disability policy. Scholars
have suggested several different types of reforms (Erkulwater et al., 2009). In general, liberal
politicians generally believe non-work is usually involuntary. Subsequently, they have attempted
to address the expense gaps of disabled people by expanding social welfare programs such as
Medicare, Medicaid and various transportation programs. They have attempted to ameliorate
income gaps by expanding SSDI, SSI, and TANF. Democratic leaders are consistently and
predictably supportive of these efforts (Obama, 2009; Obama, 2012; and Reid, 2012). Generally,
they support an increase in the level of benefits offered to people with disabilities or lower the
income threshold to trigger participation in the SSDI and SSI programs. Others believe the field
needs more research to understand the nuanced intersection of disability, poverty and employment
(Groce et al., 2011).
Conservative politicians generally believe non-work is usually voluntary. As a result, they
have attempted to address income security gaps through increased access to employment
opportunities and other private sector partnerships to encourage intervention (Danzinger, 2010).
One example of these efforts is extending unemployment insurance so unemployed people no
longer have a corrupt incentive to misreport their disability status in order to collect SSDI (Orszag,
2010). Others have suggested a new program model that provides an earned-income tax credit for
people with disabilities who work. This type of program would encourage disabled people to keep
a paying job with the incentive of credits to round out their income (Turkewitz & Linderman,
2012).

23
People outside the campaign circuit have suggested working with employers to develop
supported employment programs. In these programs, “a team of employment specialists and
mental health workers helps clients identify what kind of work they would like to do, find a job as
quickly as possible, and succeed on the job or move to another job, while avoiding the lengthy
assessments and prevocational training of traditional approaches” (Drake et al., 2009, p. 3).
Conservatives also support policies to encourage personal saving through special pre-tax accounts
once they achieve employment (Soffer et al., 2010).
To summarize, there are two prevailing schools of thought for improvements to the current
approach. The first calls for policymakers to create better incentives for disabled Americans’
participation in the workforce. These incentives attempt to emphasize the financial security
associated with full employment and deemphasize the convenience of public assistance. Incentives
can be monetary, for example, by decreasing income thresholds for SSDI to trigger broader benefit
payments when disabled people secure employment. Incentives can also be institutional, by
limiting barriers to employment through improved, coordinated, and streamlined services and
supports. Employers must also focus on employing and retaining people with disabilities. In
particular, policymakers and advocacy organizations can help businesses find ways to maintain
employment relationships and encourage return to work following short- and long-term disability.
Employers should be educated about the special needs and talents of disabled individuals, ranging
from antidiscrimination issues to the financial benefits of employing them. Monetary incentives
would be beneficial at the employer level as well. One suggested incentive would require
employers to share the cost burdens of long-term unemployment claims for people with
disabilities. Another suggestion would offer a tax subsidy for employers that augment the
employment rate for people with disabilities.

24
The second school of thought calls for a new level of government coordination.
Specifically, government officials should assign a new or existing agency – perhaps the President’s
Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities – to oversee efforts that focus and align
the various programs and services offered to support disabled Americans. Policymakers should
focus on eliminating redundancies that create unnecessary obstacles. Agencies that provide
services should coordinate their efforts to minimize paperwork by creating one mutually agreeable
application for services that can follow the individual from one agency to another.
Alternatives fail to address fundamental issues
These suggestions are a good start, but they still fail to address the central concern: people
with disabilities are excluded from the social fabric of society even though they have no control
over the condition that limits them. It is clear that low income and employment rates are merely
symptoms of this greater public policy problem. This exclusion removes labor and economic
activity from the market, and impedes the benefits of a diverse, inclusive society. Most
importantly, it contributes to financial instability by negatively affecting expenses, income, and
employment. These problems persist despite policymakers’ attempts to improve the situation. The
‘patchwork of protections’ is largely to blame.
Neither a ‘patchwork’ nor mere ‘protection’ is sufficient to help disabled people achieve
financial stability and equity. Clearly, disabled people cannot afford to let present trends continue.
Monetary incentives in the private and public sectors would have an impact, but fail to address
more than one variable contributing to the problem. An ideal policy alternative would offer
complementary support that is income agnostic. This alternative could provide access to financial
stability without threat of withdrawal once individuals achieve that stability. A new approach
might construct disability policy to reduce a particularly high expense: transportation. Improved

25
financing and planning of these transportation systems could provide greater access to jobs, higher
wages and lower expenses, not to mention improved access to the communities that often exclude
members of this population.
Transportation: A new focus
Wachs and Taylor’s 1998 study focused on welfare recipients generally, but they
demonstrate how transportation policy can influence employment rates for high-risk populations.
They found welfare recipients with access to cars were 62 percent more likely to have reported
working within the previous five weeks than those with no access to a car. In addition, welfare
recipients with cars worked 25 more hours each month and received an average hourly wage 67
cents higher than the wage of carless welfare recipients (Wachs and Taylor, 1998).
Wachs and Taylor are not alone in their conclusions. Research over the last 17 years has
consistently demonstrated the correlation between cars and positive work outcomes for people
receiving public assistance. Until recently, that research was only able to show uncertain causal
relationships: cars were a reliable predictor of financial stability, but not necessarily the reason for
it (Ong, 1996; Ong, 2002; Ong & Blumenberg, 1998). A 2005 study tracked research participants
over time to determine the long-term impact of vehicle access on outcomes related to financial
stability. Their results showed people with access to a vehicle in the early stages of the study were
more likely to get a job and eliminate their need for financial support within 18 to 24 months.
Access to a car also decreased the odds of becoming unemployed during the study. Their research
suggests access to a vehicle helped participants stay employed and seek new jobs with higher
wages. Pay was between $0.72 and $2.12 higher for individuals who had access to a vehicle from
the beginning of the study, controlling for other factors. Subjects that did not begin with a car but

26
obtained one before they reached the 75 percent completion mark increased work time by more
than eight hours per week (Gurley and Bruce, 2005).
Another article in 2009 also showed that access to a car increased employment rates,
improved wages, and decreased the odds that a given person would need public assistance in the
future (Baum, 2009). Other researchers were able to address the logistical issues faced by people
with complex transportation needs or significant mobility barriers. Several more have linked
positive health outcomes to better transportation access (Shier et al., 2013; Coronini-Cronberg et
al., 2012). In all cases, dependable access to a personal vehicle helped fulfill important personal
needs and improve financial independence. In the case of working mothers, one study
demonstrated that consistent access to a personal vehicle was the singular solution to ameliorate
the transportation challenges they faced (Flecther, Garasky and Nielsen, 2005; Rogalsky, 2010).
A number of factors could explain these extraordinary results. On one hand, access to a
personal vehicle results in reduced commute times when compared to public transit. There is no
need to wait for a bus or build extra time into your schedule if you have a car that can provide
door-to-door transportation. These factors could play a role in decreasing the expenses associated
with having a job, which gives an individual more time to work or do other things (Raphael and
Rice, 2002). In other words, less time on the road might mean more time on the job. Furthermore,
people that could not afford to spend time commuting to find a job might have become free to
enter the workforce. In both cases, access to a personal vehicle could account for the net increase
in work hours and higher pay. On the other hand, access to a personal vehicle might provide more
opportunities for finding and keeping work. People with unrestricted transportation mobility can
search for jobs in more places with a wider range of work hours because fixed routes and schedules
do not burden them. In this way, expanding the size of the search area expands the probability of

27
receiving a good job offer with an acceptable wage, which increases the benefits of commuting to
that job rather than a job with fewer hours and lower wages (Raphael and Rice, 2002). These
favorable conditions also help people maintain the attendance record required to keep a job. In the
end, these results seem to suggest that access to a vehicle is vital to the employment and financial
stability of low-income individuals that are most likely to receive public assistance through welfare
programs.
Why focus on transportation?
Policymakers and the public have already identified disabled individuals as a population
worthy of comprehensive public assistance, in many instances even greater than that received by
people on traditional welfare programs. Thus, this line of research offers a glimmer of hope for a
way to promote financial stability for this underserved population. If people with disabilities had
broader access to consistent, reliable transportation, they may have better access to jobs, more
opportunities to work and higher wages.
Recent scholarly work has explored the possibility of offering public loans for people to
buy cars rather than expand public transit infrastructure (Sandoval et al., 2011). Indeed, some have
argued that public funds would be used to greater effect in this way (Baum, 2009; Lucas &
Nicholson, 2003). If the goal of public transit is to increase mobility for people in urban centers
who need better access to jobs, social supports, and personal services, mass transit may not always
be the best approach. As of 2005, there were more than 160 locally administered programs
nationwide aimed at helping low-income households obtain vehicles to address the mass transit
gap (Waller, 2005). These programs ranged from loans for secondhand vehicles to community-
funded car sharing (Schintler and Kaplan, 2000; Sandoval et al., 2011). If these policymakers were
open to exploring that possibility for welfare recipients and other individuals who rely on financial

28
assistance, surely they can explore the same possibility for the disabled. People with disabilities
may always need some form of public assistance, but policymakers from both sides of the aisle
seek equilibrium: the exact level of support that provides great services at a great price.
Would similar initiatives to provide personal vehicles for disabled people result in similar
positive effects? Not entirely. Although there is a strong point of comparison between the features
of each population, welfare recipients are different from disabled people and potential solutions
would affect them in different ways. People with disabilities are, by nature, more likely to have
debilitating mental or physical conditions that keep them from getting and keeping a job.
Furthermore, many of the conditions that cause disability prevent disabled people from driving a
personal vehicle to begin with.
However, it is also important to note that the scarcity of personal transportation for people
with disabilities is at least a contributing factor to their financial dependence. In one study, research
showed that reduced access to personal vehicles was a contributing factor to racial disparities in
the employment rate. These authors concluded that “the finding of a strong employment effect of
car access coupled with these large interracial/ethnic differences in car ownership rates suggests
that car ownership may provide a partial explanation of the persistent racial and ethnic difference
in employment ratios and unemployment rates observed in the US” (Raphael and Rice, 2002, p.
22). By adding a variable indicating car ownership to the regression analysis, the study was able
to show that owning a car reduces black-white and Latin-white employment disparities by 37
percent and 48 percent respectively.
If even a fraction of these results hold true among a group with different demographics,
supporting access to paratransit that mimics personal vehicle ownership could be an important and
worthwhile pursuit of public policy. Access to better, more reliable transportation would improve

29
the chances that disabled people could transition to higher rates of employment, more work, higher
wages and, as a result, greater financial stability. In time, these results might significantly reduce
reliance on public assistance and promote transportation equity for this underserved community.
Therefore, the single best intervention for improving the lives of disabled people is
prioritizing transportation by exploring new ways to promote their physical inclusion in society—
in the workplace, in public spaces, and in the social fabric. Unlike non-disabled people, disabled
individuals often lack the freedom to access traditional public transit or own and operate a vehicle.
When transportation is an insurmountable obstacle, Americans with disabilities are excluded from
full employment, social interaction, and ultimately, full integration in society. By focusing on
transportation, we have a unique opportunity to improve all these issues by giving people with
disabilities the independence required to achieve long-term financial stability.
The current state of transportation for disabled people
Just over twenty years ago, many people with disabilities could only get to a doctor’s
appointment, buy groceries, or go to work if a friend, family member, or caregiver was able to
drive them. Before the Americans with Disabilities Act, many transit agency officials believed the
least expensive option for transporting disabled people was to offer special services that provided
curb-to-curb transportation. This belief relied on the assumption that it would be easier and cheaper
to provide this type of service for individuals who needed support than to retrofit existing
transportation infrastructure to include disabled people on buses, trains and public transit service
locations (Winter and Williams, 2001). The ADA affirmed this belief by including a requirement
for states to provide personalized transportation services to people with disabilities that supplement
fixed-route public transit (Danzinger, 2010). This component of the ADA explicitly requires
special transportation for people whose limitations make them incapable of using existing public

30
transit. These programs, called paratransit, help people with these limitations access jobs, run
errands, and carry out day-to-day responsibilities required of any modern American.
Administering paratransit services
The ADA outlines minimum requirements for paratransit, which include curb-to-curb
transportation within the service area of existing transit services, a system for riders to make ride
appointments, and reasonable time constraints for pick-up and drop-off (Denson, 2000). The most
common way to administer paratransit is through ‘dial-a-ride’ service, which gives riders the
ability to call a central location and request a ride at a specific day and time. These services must
adhere to very specific conditions. For example, users are required to reserve rides more than 24
hours in advance. Depending on the disability, riders may receive curb-to-curb, door-to-door, or
door-through-door service. These varying tiers of service align with the level of support required
to transport the individual from one location to another (Sterns et al., 2003).
In Connecticut, the Department of Transportation contracts with 14 regional agencies to
provide paratransit services in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. These
agencies are quasi-public: they receive funding from the Federal Transit Administration, the U.S.
Department of Transportation, the Connecticut Department of Transportation, municipalities, and
paratransit riders to transport disabled people living in districts with existing fixed-route public
transit. Paratransit rider fares in Connecticut range from $2.50 to $4.50 per one-way trip,
depending on the service area. One of the largest regional agencies offering contracted paratransit
services in Connecticut, the Greater Hartford Transit District, operates 90 specialized vehicles with
wheelchair lifts and provides more than 480,000 ride segments to disabled people each year
(Greater Hartford Transit District, 2011).

31
There are several benefits to offering paratransit services. In practice, they help people with
disabilities get around their communities and result in some form of mobility. In an ideal world,
paratransit could be a catalyst for transportation equity by providing a similar freedom of
movement to that experienced by people in the population at large. There are also fringe benefits.
For example, paratransit requires accessible vehicles that can also benefit non-disabled people.
Wheelchair-accessible buses are helpful to the elderly and injured, resulting in value that transit
planners do not usually include in their cost-benefit analyses. Similarly, planners do not currently
measure the cost savings of more efficient provision of services. Rather than health and social
services departments providing fragmented transportation to disabled people, specific agencies
fund and coordinate paratransit with the expertise and resources to provide transportation
regardless of the destination. When one paratransit ride replaces one ambulance ride, for example,
health agencies and taxpayers save hundreds of dollars. In a given year, those costs savings add up
for thousands of trips to dialysis treatments and other health care services (Winter and Williams,
2001). Another benefit currently not measured is the economic multiplier. More disabled people
in the community means a marginal increase in local economic activity and incrementally higher
tax revenue. Paratransit services offer important benefits to users, communities, and society as a
whole.
Paratransit challenges for service providers
It is worth spending some time detailing the challenges of paratransit services, to both the
providers that offer them and the riders who use them. First, the programs are complex and costly
for states and municipalities. Scheduling and providing federally mandated, locally funded rides
to people with disabilities in an economical way is a challenge for most counties and cities. The
cost of paratransit has more than doubled since the year the ADA became law (Palmer et al., 2008).

32
The minimum service requirements prescribed by federal law set a high bar that many
localities struggle to meet. For example, agencies must provide paratransit within an hour of the
scheduled pickup. Local traffic conditions, high demand, scheduling errors, and longer-than-
expected ride times are just a few examples of factors that impact a service provider’s ability to
arrive on time, even though they have a half hour before and after the scheduled pickup to
administer the service. This can cause riders to be late for work and appointments and could result
in lawsuits charging the service provider with failing to adhere to the ADA.
Some local transit agencies provide services to ineligible individuals to avoid any
appearance of impropriety. This strategy helps service providers avoid litigation, but also results
in higher costs and more complexity (Winter and Williams, 2001). Paper reservation systems,
complicated operational guidelines, and inadequate funding compound these problems and result
in more systemic issues.
Higher-than-expected demand has also challenged paratransit providers, resulting in too
many passengers and ride segments for their operating budgets and schedules. The centralization
of transportation services and net increases in the number of riders has resulted in a higher service
volume. After the ADA became law, paratransit took the place of services typically offered by
other government agencies such as social services and health departments (Winter and Williams,
2001). Instead of receiving rides from an ambulance or social service department, disabled people
could now use paratransit to access appointments. In addition, the number of new riders has
increased steadily (Bearse et al., 2004) As a result, demand for services far outpaced public
agencies’ ability to provide them.
Higher-than-expected ridership negatively affected several paratransit systems. One
service provider in Pennsylvania frequently failed to meet minimum service requirements because

33
of inconsistent and unpredictable service that led to court-ordered fines (Rogers, 2002). In 2000,
it left an average of 74 people each day hopelessly waiting for rides. In all, implementation of
paratransit service around the U.S. resulted in “steady erosion in the quality of conventional transit
services, in terms of service coverage, service frequency, reliability, and other critical performance
measures” (Winter and Williams, 2001, p. 678). Educational programs about efficient use of
paratransit are responsible for reductions in service time, but not a significant reduction in the
number of riders using a given system (Fitzgerald et al., 2000).
States and service providers spend a great deal of money complying with the federal
requirements. In 2011, the State of Connecticut dedicated $25,565,960 to regional paratransit
programs (Connecticut Public Transportation Commission, 2009). Paratransit trips cost ten times
more than comparable fixed-route public transit. In Connecticut, paratransit costs $35.00 per one-
way trip, while a comparable one-way trip on fixed route transportation costs an average of $3.50
(Maloney, 2013).
Paratransit challenges for riders
Municipalities are not alone in struggling with the system mandated by the ADA. These
programs are funded in part by rider tickets and per-trip access fees. For people with low rates of
employment and little financial stability, these fees can be cost-prohibitive barriers to participation.
Users also find paratransit unsatisfactory for many of the fundamental restrictions they impose
(Denson, 2000). In many cases, riders face reduced paratransit access through limited hours of
operation and reservation requirements. In many locations, services are only available between
6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. local time. Paratransit is available only in areas close to existing fixed-
route public transit, and a pick-up requires at least 24 hours’ notice in most locations. Each
paratransit district can decide whether they will accommodate reservations more than one day in

34
advance, according to rules issued by the Federal Transit Administration in 1996. Many providers
have taken advantage of this autonomy and only offer rides on a case-by-case basis. This helps
reduce costs and ease administrative burdens for the system, but requires riders to call each day
for a new reservation and leaves them uncertain of whether they will be able to secure a ride when
they need it next (Rogers, 2002).
Users must be available for pickup during a window of time as large as 30 minutes before
and 30 minutes after their scheduled pickup time, but face the risk of suspension if they are late
for pickup a handful of times. One major problem is the ‘missed ride’ phenomenon: paratransit
riders waiting for a vehicle might leave the pickup location to contact the call center and check on
the vehicle’s status, which can cause them to miss the ride (Rogers, 2002). In one Connecticut
paratransit district, riders who are five minutes late more than four times in a two month period
will be suspended (Greater Waterbury Transit District, 2015). Some districts are more lenient, but
this is a common example. The missed-ride phenomenon could mean that a ride vehicle becomes
more than a half hour late, the rider leaves the pickup location to check on the status, the vehicle
arrives, and the provider marks the rider as late or absent. If this happens several times, the provider
can suspend the rider even though the problems are systemic.
Finally, although local paratransit providers have adapted over time and found ways to
comply with the ADA, the services fail to meet most riders’ standards of quality. Riders marked
the trip reservation process, on-time performance, and communication process unsatisfactory in
one survey of riders (Denson, 2000). Researchers need to acquire more data on this issue, but every
step in the process from reservation to drop-off imposes at least a small burden on people with
disabilities, particularly when compared to car-owning peers whose mobility is only limited by the

35
price of gasoline. These requirements may be generous in the eyes of policymakers, but they are
inadequate to serve the mobility needs of humans living in a modern society.
Attempts to improve paratransit
Court orders and threats of fines have ameliorated issues like this over the last 15 years,
but service gaps remain. Municipal transportation providers are continually looking for innovative
cost containment strategies. They are tightening rider eligibility, regulating ride reservations,
hiring private sector organizations, and using new technology to support operations. In order to
cut costs, paratransit providers have cracked down on rider eligibility through increasingly
complex application processes. Some providers have narrowly defined paratransit eligibility as
being completely incapable of using existing transit services. They use physical examinations,
cognitive evaluations, and in-person interviews to verify an applicant’s current limitations and
keep those who simply have difficulties using fixed-route transit from becoming paratransit-
eligible (Winter and Williams, 2001). The Greater Hartford Transit District, for example, requires
applicants to demonstrate they cannot travel to or from fixed route stops, use an accessible route
provided by standard public transit, or independently navigate the transit system. They use ADA
guidelines, face-to-face interviews, environmental checks, medical verifications to ensure
eligibility (Greater Hartford Transit District, 2011). In certain geographic areas, taxi companies
pick up riders at the expense of transit agencies as they attempt to supplement service operations
in a cost-effective manner.
Efforts to narrowly define eligibility and reduce reservation windows to keep ridership low
have helped reduce the cost of administering paratransit services, but result in the unfortunate and
needless exclusion of disabled people who could benefit from these programs. Litigation and
diligent bureaucrats have provided guidelines to help municipalities follow the rules and ensure

36
the service providers comply with federal service requirements, but minimum compliance does
not always equal value for riders (Rogers, 2002). Each of the aforementioned approaches takes
aim at the paratransit cost and complexity problems faced by service providers. Unfortunately,
providers have undertaken very few initiatives for the benefit of riders.
From minimum standards to equity
These gaps in the paratransit system have played a role in the exclusion of disabled people
from participating in all aspects of life. The result is a program indistinguishable from the ‘separate
but equal’ doctrine used to circumvent integration efforts in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth
centuries (Winter and Williams, 2001). Paratransit around the nation has complied with the letter
of the ADA, but not the spirit of civil rights law generally. For that reason, analyzing paratransit
using only the lenses of cost and complexity ignores the function of the ADA as a civil rights law.
Typically, this category of law imposes a moral obligation on society to distribute the costs of
compliance more evenly among all people:
By their very nature, civil rights are indivisible outcomes whose benefits flow to all
passengers and all taxpayers equally…The denial of rights to one group today is to condone
the denial of rights, successively, to all other groups in society. Thus it is preposterous to
delineate the costs of meeting one group’s civil rights. In short, the ADA did not create a
transportation program. Nor is the ADA a new entitlement. Instead, the ADA rejected the
historical practice of denying existing transportation services to people with disabilities.
Although the ADA’s intended effects include making transportation services accessible to
people with disabilities, the purpose of the legislation is to protect the right to existing
transit service, not to create new transit services. To some this may be a fine distinction,
but it is crucial. Consider the term “public” in public transit. By federal law this has always
meant that every single federally funded transit vehicle in service must be available to
anyone. Like police protection, public schools, and fire protection, the doors of public
transit are equally open to all (Winter and Williams, 2001, p. 676-77).
When the ADA became law, Congress determined the civil rights requirement should apply
to disabled people. However, analysis of the law has focused on the cost of programs and services

37
while ignoring the justification for providing them to begin with: equality in one’s freedom of
movement. Winter and Williams (2001) contend that the costs imposed by the Americans with
Disabilities Act are necessary and people should appreciate the requirements for the value they
can bring to the people they serve and society.
Transit planners rarely consider the enforcement of civil rights in their budgets.
Historically, they have relied exclusively on budgetary arithmetic to determine whether they can
afford their paratransit programs, but not the benefits of funding them. They considered only the
‘cost’ in the ‘cost-benefit analysis,’ and that has turned the people served by paratransit into victims
of austerity during difficult times. Independence – both personal and financial – should be the
ultimate goal of the ADA as a civil rights law; to do that, we must move from minimum standards
to transportation equity.
Officials have attempted to create policies that support equity. Federal interventions in the
late 1990s and early 2000s tried to expand the definition of transportation equity for people with
disabilities by tying transit to quality of life outcomes. Programs started through the New Freedom
Initiative, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st
Century, and the Moving Ahead for Progress
in the 21st
Century Act included increased funding for grants that states and local paratransit
planners could use to maintain their fleets, expand transportation infrastructure, and experiment
with innovative services. Connecticut’s Freedom Ride Initiative (The Yellow Cab Company,
2015) is one example of a program that aims to give disabled people access to more demand-
responsive transit. Funded in part by the New Freedom Initiative, the program subsidizes half of
an eligible disabled person’s ride in a taxicab to supplement their transportation needs (Connecticut
Department of Transportation, 2012). Programs like this can help increase mobility for disabled
individuals, but they are expensive despite the 50 percent subsidy. The program includes profits

38
to the taxicab company, a margin that might otherwise result in savings if disabled people owned
and operated their own vehicles.
The Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) has conducted several studies to
determine the value of these investments beyond compliance; not just the value to transit budgets,
but to the people aided by paratransit services, the communities they live in, and the businesses
that employ and serve them. Early efforts have been promising. The FTA has issued specific
guidelines to help local authorities consider value measurement in their budgetary planning cycles.
The new metrics assign dollar values to the economic benefits individuals and communities receive
when they finance and administer paratransit services (Winter and Williams, 2001).
However, disabled individuals still travel infrequently. When they do, it is often at the
convenience of their guardians or their government. Employed disabled people travel to work, but
rarely elsewhere. Unemployed disabled people do not need transportation to work, but both groups
are less likely to participate in social events, associate with non-disabled individuals, or participate
in their livelihood by grocery shopping, running errands, and performing basic day-to-day tasks
around town (Farber and Paez, 2010). If the strict requirements and complex rules that apply to
disabled individuals were imposed on people without disabilities, the ‘able-bodied’ would
probably travel much less frequently. On the other hand, disabled people would use far more
transportation, at least more in line with their non-disabled peers, if government reduced the
burdens of bureaucratic red tape and shortened the amount of time between decision to travel and
departure. If we want to calculate the total cost of per-capita transportation for disabled individuals
accurately, we must assume they would travel in similar frequency and geography as their non-
disabled counterparts.

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Technology as a catalyst for reform
The future of paratransit services should ideally address cost and complexity, but an index
of these measures should not be the sole litmus test for success. Access, quality, service coverage,
service frequency, reliability, and rider satisfaction should be given equal weight. After all, these
criteria provide a more complete picture of the impact transportation has on individuals in our
society—and disabled people should be no exception. Technology could play an important role in
improving service quality and turning the paratransit system into a catalyst for transportation
equity. Recent developments in transportation technology present some opportunities for
improving the situation. I will explore three options for capturing a portion of the promising results
gained by welfare recipients when they get access to a personal vehicle: demand-responsive public
transit, crowd-sourced private transit, and autonomous private vehicles.
Demand-responsive paratransit
Two alternatives can make existing paratransit faster, more accessible, and more
responsive to the mobility needs of people with disabilities. The first option for more demand-
responsive service is to use technology and data analytics to improve existing infrastructure. This
technology can help manage expenses and improve efficiency. There are several examples of
paratransit providers using this technology. Mobile data terminals are onboard computers that
improve communication between dispatchers working in a paratransit scheduling center and the
drivers that operate vehicles. When local traffic conditions, cancellations, or new reservations
diminish the efficiency of the system, mobile data terminals send information from the dispatcher
to the driver so he or she is immediately aware of scheduling and route changes. Improvements in
this technology have added automated voice messages so riders can receive notifications

40
automatically when their ride is on the way. This can help paratransit riders avoid missing their
ride when they leave the pickup location to contact the call center to check on the vehicle’s status
(Rogers, 2002).
Automated phone systems can also improve speed and accessibility. Many service districts
have implemented this technology in the last several years, allowing riders to reserve a ride, check
the status of a reservation, or cancel a ride—all without human intervention. These systems have
helped free up reservation personnel and reduce the number of employees required to operate a
paratransit system (Rogers, 2002). These efforts can reduce costs and make operations more
efficient, which may result in cost savings and qualitative benefits for riders.
Data analytics could also improve vehicle deployment and pickup assignments for
paratransit systems. These efforts confront many barriers to efficiency: in a given service area,
providers may have several different vehicle types, a diverse group of customers with different
transportation and support needs, thousands of different pick-up and drop-off locations, employees
working different schedules, and many rules that regulate the paratransit experience. If a computer
program could process this data and provide actionable information, it could minimize the number
of vehicles and routes needed to deliver paratransit services and still meet or exceed minimum
service requirements. Several studies have addressed this possibility; results have been positive
and researchers have offered several suggestions for applying specific models to existing systems
(Hall and Peterson, 2013). One study created a subgroup called ‘easily served passengers’ among
the population of people served by the system. These passengers were typically people with
disabilities who had trouble navigating fixed-route transit systems, but did not have physical
disabilities that prevented them from getting in and out of vehicles. By assigning this group to
high-capacity vehicles and remaining riders to smaller vehicles with a higher driver-to-rider ratio,

41
they were able to improve operating time by 12 percent. Measurements of satisfaction and quality
also improved (Carlsson and Houle, 2013). Another study considered using fixed-route transit
buses by allowing them to divert from their normal route to serve proximate paratransit riders
(Dikas and Minis, 2014). Unfortunately, these studies are rare. Further studies focusing on data
analytics could help paratransit administrators refine the algorithms and move closer to optimal
efficiency.
The second approach to make paratransit more demand-responsive is to use service
providers in the private sector. Some paratransit providers have already started initiatives that
engage local taxi companies in the system. Accessible Raleigh Transportation (ART), a paratransit
provider in North Carolina, contracted with taxicabs to reduce the cost of operations. Local laws
require companies with more than six taxis to give rides to paratransit-eligible individuals and
receive partial reimbursement from ART. Depending on the program, riders can either purchase
vouchers from the local government at a 52 percent ride cost discount or call the city to arrange
pick-ups at $1.50 per one-way trip. One ART employee admitted the service is the same cost to
the municipality, but adds substantial improvements for riders (Rogers, 2002). It allows the cab
companies to make a profit, but it also reduces operational costs through lower labor and
administrative expenses. There are also fringe benefits to this approach. Paratransit riders typically
ride together, making disabled people feel like wards of the system. On the other hand, non-
disabled individuals riding independently are the primary users of private sector taxicabs. By
helping disabled people use taxicabs instead of paratransit, they can gain a feeling of self-worth
and independence because they are using single-person transport that does not segregate them into
groups of like-abled people.

42
Crowd-sourced paratransit
Another solution expands on the concept of private sector service providers by giving
disabled people access to a car without car ownership. Car-sharing has become a fixture of the
sharing economy in recent years. Many have noted personal vehicles spend most of their lives
parked, a noticeably inefficient way to allocate transportation resources. Therefore, at least for the
non-disabled population, car-sharing has helped reduce the cost of transportation by providing
private, demand-responsive transportation only when the driver needs to be in a vehicle. When the
car is not in use, another driver can operate it to promote optimal efficiency. Companies like
ZipCar and Carpingo grew during the early 2000s and recruited nearly 300,000 members in the
United States (Duncan, 2011). Today, companies like Über and Lyft have grown exponentially in
urban centers and other populated areas. Users can join the service free and make reservations for
pick-up and drop-off from their smartphones. Drivers sign up, typically as a part-time job or hobby,
to provide the rides and make money for doing so (Anderson, 2014). These services use global
positioning systems (GPS) on driver and rider smartphones to operate the system efficiently. They
depend on software to connect riders with drivers and eliminate many of the administrative costs
associated with manual reservations. In many locations, Über and Lyft can provide rides within
ten or fifteen minutes of a reservation. As a result, new drivers are using their personal vehicles to
join the transportation system every day under this new type of ‘public’ transit. “Riders who are
satisfied with ‘e-hailing’ claim that its services are greener, friendlier and make more use of
resources than conventional taxi systems; indeed, cities where e-transit has been tried have seen
increased ridership and high consumer ratings” (Krohe Jr., 2013, p. 15).
Regulators have started considering how these new transportation providers can coexist
with or replace the traditional taxi system in many areas. Many are hesitant to dampen innovative

43
practices, but also want to protect consumers from physical, financial, or legal harm. As
policymakers debate the risks and rewards of putting transit into the hands of millions of private
service providers, there is a real opportunity to use this new flurry of innovation to serve
government interests. Paratransit providers should accept that riders are already using these
services to increase their independence.
In particular, visually impaired individuals have found the Über app very accessible on
smartphones like the Apple iPhone. Using voice commands and a few taps, people can schedule a
ride and even pay for that transportation without needing to count cash or select a card from their
wallet (Rempel, 2014). Car-sharing further enhances convenience because it uses GPS to assign
drivers, track vehicle locations, and provide precise departure and arrival times. This helps
paratransit providers avoid the problem of missed pickups when riders must leave a location to
check on ride status. Knowing exactly when a ride will arrive and exactly how long it will take the
user to get from door to curb, the driver and rider can meet on time and ensure on-time drop-off.
Instead of receiving a half-hour window, users could reserve their rides less than a half-hour in
advance and get to their destination – employer, recreation, or otherwise – at the time they require.
In concept, paratransit systems looking to use companies like Über to supplement their existing
services could integrate their payment subsidy into the digital platform, providing a seamless
reservation and payment system that serves paratransit-eligible individuals.
Even the federal government has taken a step toward car-sharing. Various agencies manage
an astounding number of vehicles in the federal fleet, more than 200,000 cars in 2013, at a high
cost. The General Services Administration (GSA) spent $430 million on fuel, depreciation, and
maintenance for the fleet in 2013 and federal agencies have experimented with different ways to
keep costs low. In November 2014, the GSA announced it would use ZipCar, Enterprise CarShare,

44
Hertz, and Carpingo to transport employees of various agencies when they are traveling on
business to New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. The agency hopes it will
move employees from costly taxicabs and rental cars to more economical, self-administered transit
for the times they need it.
This pilot program tests the idea that sharing vehicles can improve efficiency and reduce
costs. Maintaining a large fleet of government vehicles is expensive, so even high hourly car-
sharing rates would be an improvement over the current expenditure. Eventually, such a program
could reduce the number of operational vehicles needed for the government fleet and help them
get rid of cars they rarely use (Rein, 2014). Programs like this can support progress toward
paratransit reform by demonstrating the value of technology-based innovation to bureaucrats by
speaking their language. These pilots can provide benchmarks for measuring cost savings and
show transit managers the value of thinking differently. It can also help policymakers in state and
local government adopt a welcoming approach to similar pilots and help them create new rules
and regulations to govern programs outside the norm.
I would not suggest a full transition to private sector car-sharing; some limitations can
cause headaches for riders, drivers, and transit managers. Services like Über and Lyft currently
operate in densely populated areas like major cities and airport locations. That leaves many
disabled people out of the service area, and might leave even more underserved. However, the
ADA’s minimum service requirements only require paratransit services where fixed route public
transit already exists, so there is quite a bit of overlap between the service areas of public transit
and companies like Über and Lyft—they all depend on a concentrated population. Über currently
serves every major transit system in the United States, according to a cursory comparison of Über’s
service area and the nation’s largest bus public transit agencies (Über, 2015; Dickens, 2015).

45
Furthermore, costs of these services can fluctuate wildly based on supply and demand. Paratransit
systems looking to supplement existing services with these providers must have mechanisms in
place to control prices and ensure driver availability during peak hours so people with disabilities
are not improperly excluded from the system.
However, early adoption can provide a catalyst for discussion and action that enhances
rather than inhibits better paratransit service for people with disabilities. Paratransit districts that
implemented the idea of complementing traditional services with those provided by the private
sector may want to consider how crowd-sourced private transit might improve the system. As an
alternative to full outsourcing to the private sector, local paratransit providers could organize
groups of volunteer drivers and fund an app to coordinate their services. In the meantime, local
governments can work with the service providers to shape public policy and necessary regulations.
This is not a new school of thought. One scholar studying the sharing economy argues that the new
sharing economy requires open-mindedness on the part of regulators to avoid stifling innovation
(Ranchordas, 2014). These regulations can be fewer in number but broad to include basic
regulatory requirements and room for growth in the event of future improvements to the new
practices.
Autonomous vehicles
What if there was a way to combine the benefits of ridesharing and demand-responsive
transit with the latest technology to give disabled people unfettered access to vehicles without the
costs of operating a complex public transit system? There might be in the coming years. Five trends
are converging that could change the way we transport ourselves: an ‘internet of things’ that uses
computer networks to control real-world objects, a car-sharing economy, personalized automobile
design that produces vehicles for specific uses, new drive systems that allow alternative energy

46
sources to power vehicles, and autonomous cars (Burns et al., 2013). Taken together, these
converging forces will create the perfect opportunity for transportation equity among people with
disabilities.
Autonomous cars, also known as driverless or self-driving cars, use onboard computers,
GPS, radar, and visual aid devices to pilot the vehicle without human control. The cameras on top
of an autonomous car “spins ten times a second, emitting 64 lasers that generate 3D information
on objects all around [it]; the car also has radar that bounces 150 meters or so in every direction to
perceive things a human driver never could” (Jaffe, 2014). To the average person, this may sound
like science fiction, but Google has already taken the lead in testing them across the country in
real-world driving environments (Lassa, 2013). Google’s autonomous vehicles have logged more
than 500,000 accident-free miles to date. Google expects to introduce autonomous cars to the
public in the next few years. Other automakers plan to join them and make autonomous cars ready
for use on public roads by 2020 (Fisher, 2013).
Using autonomous vehicle technology to transport people with disabilities is neither out of
the realm of possibility nor out of the minds of the people leading the automobile industry. Google,
for its part, publicized its work on autonomous vehicles by giving a ride to Steve Mahan, a blind
person from California, in 2012 (Moscaritolo, 2012). In its widely shared video, Google shows
Steve driving around town, running errands and picking up food. “Ninety-five percent of my vision
is gone,” Mahan says in the video. “I’m well past legally blind. Where this would change my life
is to give me the independence and flexibility to go the places I both want to go and need to go,
when I need to do those things.” Google conceded there is a long way to go before this dream can
become a reality for people like Steve. “We organized this test as a technical experiment,” an
unidentified Google employee wrote in its video description, “but we think it’s also a promising

47
look at what autonomous technology may one day deliver if rigorous technology and safety
standards can be met” (Google, 2012).
In three years, Google has come a long way in the development of this technology. In 2012,
the company retrofitted existing vehicles like the Toyota Prius to include their autonomous drive
systems. Now, Google is building its own vehicles – bumper to bumper – and testing them to
ensure they are ready for consumers. The company’s initial testing program demanded different
vehicle types to test different components of the vehicle, both the computer that enables
autonomous driving and the drivetrain that enables motion. The latest vehicles are compact and
uniquely designed to focus one thing: a “fully functioning vehicle” for “fully autonomous driving.”
The design complements the cameras it uses to perceive the world around it and make automated
driving decisions (Google Self-Driving Car Project, 2014). Indeed, comparisons of Google’s latest
design to earlier prototypes show differences in the size and design of the vehicle’s visual sensor
system for better form function and performance (Kastrenakes, 2014). Google’s work in this area
has sparked the imagination of the public and even found its way into pop culture (Inman, 2014).
Google is not alone in developing this technology. Software manufacturers are creating
programs that will enable autonomous cars to process critical information quickly (Savov, 2015).
Audi obtained the first permit for testing self-driving cars in California (Undercoffler, 2014). Other
car companies, like BMW, Audi, and Tesla, have started working on these vehicles in reverse.
Whereas Google chose to build a fully autonomous vehicle from the ground up, other automakers
have started incrementally building the technology required to pilot an autonomous vehicle by
including components of the required sensors and onboard computers into new models. BMW
debuted sophisticated self-parking technology at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show. These
features allow users to park the vehicle remotely using a smartphone or smartwatch application.

48
The company plans to use what they learn from developing this technology to continue their
journey towards full autonomy (Khaw, 2014). BMW is also testing the limits of autonomous
vehicle technology by preparing computer programs for emergency maneuvers that could save
lives in a situations that would make proper navigation difficult (Ziegler, 2014). This technology
has improved significantly. In recent tests, ‘drivers’ have been instructed to try their best to crash
their autonomous vehicle into something—and all of them failed (Ziegler, 2015).
Other car companies are experimenting with different, but related, technologies. Audi has
created a ‘robot valet’ that allows users to summon their cars remotely using a smartphone
application and laser technology adapted to map a parking structure (Ziegler, 2013). Tesla has
rolled out incremental capabilities that lend a cruise control-like function to more than speed
control. “The company’s newest Model S cars will be able to change lanes on their own, obey
speed-limit signs, and even park themselves — while being handled by drivers the rest of the time.
As the tech advances, the hope is that these cars will get so many self-driving capabilities that
they’ll be able to drive themselves one day” (Plumer, 2014). For Tesla CEO Elon Musk, “one day”
is still five to six years away (Ramsey, 2014), but Volvo is already planning to test their driverless
cars with real customers on public roads in 2017 (Gibbs, 2015). Autonomous vehicles are
sophisticated. In many cases, they are better at driving than their human counterparts. Google’s
autonomous cars are exceptionally defensive drivers. They are programmed to stay at or below the
speed limit, give extra space to large trucks and work zones, cross railroad tracks only when they
are clear, avoid red-light runners by waiting a moment on green lights, stay out of blind spots, and
travel slowly to allow plenty of space and time for safe travel (Jaffe, 2014).
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Musk’s conservative predictions are based on his
observations of still-limited computer and visual sensor technology. Cameras, radar, and other

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