The Department of Transportation Needs Your Advice

Avenue Update #8

Over the past few editions of Avenue Update, we have identified an array of challenges that older adults and people with disabilities face when attempting to move about within their communities, including the accessibility of the pedestrian environment, the process for obtaining and then using alternative transportation services such as ADA paratransit, and a very uneven level of digital accessibility of online information and tools necessary to use the transportation services offered by many transit authorities and private transportation providers. We have also featured two ongoing rule-making efforts being undertaken by the U.S. federal government to improve accessibility within public rights of way and on the Internet. Both of these ongoing rule-making efforts could have huge implications for the accessibility of pedestrian spaces and the full array of passenger transit services operating around the world—most of which are being accessed more and more by people using computers and smartphones,. And now, the U.S. Department of Transportation is at it again.

Request for Information

Transportation Services for Individuals with Disabilities – ADA Standards for Transportation Facilities

Overview of the RFI

On November 8, 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation issued a Request for Information (RFI) to obtain input from people with disabilities, transit agencies, transportation providers, and other stakeholders, about the types of design improvements and technology enhancements that could make public transportation easier and more accessible for people with disabilities to use. More specifically, the U.S. DOT has asked a series of seven questions, covering three basic areas of concern: improving the accessibility and reliability of multi-level transit facilities; ensuring the accessibility of information conveyed to passengers via public address systems and/or that is displayed visually; and strategies for providing information that passengers with disabilities can use for navigating within transit facilities (aka way-finding).

The Perfect Time for Feedback

The U.S. DOT’s RFI is very timely as feedback could help to inform the Department’s work to finalize draft standards for the Department’s proposed Final Rule implementing the U.S. Access Board’s recently issued Public Right of Way Accessibility Guidelines. Stakeholder feedback from this RFI could also help the Department to provide better technical assistance for those transit agencies who are working on major transit facility improvement and construction projects. Bottom line, this is an important RFI, and I am hopeful that many disability community organizations, accessibility consultants, advocacy groups, and other stakeholders will take the time to provide input.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Learn more:

• Check out the RFI, including details on how to provide comments, at this link.

Share your thoughts:

• Provide comments online, by email, by fax, or by mail by January 5, 2024 (sixty days after the RFI was published in the Federal Register).

• The Department will receive comments past this deadline and will consider them to the extent practicable.

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