Simple Strategies to make your meetings, events, and ongoing public engagement accessible for everyone
All Aboard:
Conducting Accessible Community Involvement for Public Transit
A portion of proceeds from the Audiobook, Expanded Audiobook, and Digital Bundle will be donated to Perkins School for the Blind.
Who should read the book
Community involvement and public engagement professionals
People who organize board, committee, or public hearings and meetings
Conference, meeting, and event planners
HR professionals
Marketing, communication, and customer service professionals
Mobility Managers, accessible transit and paratransit managers, and anyone else who oversees or delivers services designed for people with disabilities, or older adults
Disability, aging, or other community leaders and advocates
Anyone else concerned about ensuring that public transit is effectively engaging and communicating with people with disabilities and older adults.
What you’ll learn
How making your community involvement accessible will help improve transit accessibility.
How people with different types of disabilities might be impacted by how an agency designs its meetings, events, and public engagement programs.
Practical strategies to make your meetings, events, and ongoing communication channels more accessible and inclusive for more people.
Recommendations for building and maintaining effective relationships with accessibility advisory groups and community-based organization advocates.
Ideas for keeping accessible public engagement costs low and manageable.
Tips for more effective communication with just about anyone.
This book is based on a simple premise, which most within the transit industry take as gospel. When we effectively engage with the people we transport, we are able to design and deliver a better product. From there, it’s a matter of tactics and techniques that are optimized to work for people with disabilities. It is our firm belief that when a transit agency gets community engagement right, and when the agency incorporates accessibility into their community engagement efforts, they will create the communication channels that lead to better outcomes for everyone—for transit, for riders, and for the communities where we all live, work, and play.
The public transit industry invests a lot of time and effort communicating with the public. And while it’s often required by law or as a condition of our funding, experience has taught us that effective public involvement leads to better service and a greater level of public acceptance. most transit agencies are good at effective community engagement, but making these efforts accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities can be challenging. This book was created for just this reason.
Within its pages, the authors begin by making the case for accessible community engagement. Then, they explain how typical public involvement strategies, ranging from informal surveys to highly orchestrated community events, can be made accessible for people with an array of disabilities.
The book provides specific advice on appropriate disability etiquette, creating and delivering accessible documents and presentations, conducting accessible in-person and virtual meetings, and managing just about every aspect of maintaining long-term community relationships that are accessible and inclusive for virtually everyone.
Practical Steps for Making In-Person and Virtual Meetings Accessible
All Aboard:
Conducting Accessible Community Involvement for Public Transit
A portion of proceeds from the Audiobook, Expanded Audiobook, and Digital Bundle will be donated to Perkins School for the Blind.
