MPC
Upcoming Webinar: Learning from the Travel Experiences of Persons with Disabilities: Investigating Navigation Challenges Posed by Infrastructure

Posted: Jun 7, 2024

Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Time: 2-3 p.m. Central Time

The transportation experiences of people with disabilities have improved since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. Despite progress, many aspects of the current transportation system still limit people with disabilities from traveling safely and efficiently. Moreover, transportation planning and design efforts consistently lack representation of people with disabilities.

This research seeks to address this disconnect via semi-structured interviews with 37 stakeholders. Among those, 28 are people with disabilities or are caretakers/advocates and nine are government officials whose work intersects with the supply of infrastructure regulated under the ADA. One objective is to understand how attributes of transportation infrastructure impact the daily mobility of people with disabilities. A second is to understand how the implementation and management of transportation assets impact the accessibility of travel for people with disabilities.

View the recorded webinar

Presenters

Molly Wagner has worked across nonprofits, academia, and consulting on transportation initiatives throughout the U.S. In her roles, she has collaborated with communities, practitioners, and government to center community priorities through policy and systems change in transportation, land use, and public health. She is deeply interested in exploring how policies influence the implementation of infrastructure and its impact on residents' quality of life. Molly has a master's in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado, Denver, and a Bachelor's of Science in Marketing Management from Virginia Tech. She is currently a Senior Manager for Transportation & Sustainability at the Center of Neighborhood Technology.

Manish Skirgaokar, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the College of Architecture and Planning. His research and teaching are centered on transportation and social equity. As a scholar, Manish focus is on how transportation systems help or hinder the mobility of disadvantaged groups such as older adults, women, immigrants, and low-income households. Manish has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) of the American Planning Association (APA) since 2014. Before joining academia, he worked as a private sector consultant in India (2005-07; 1997-99) and at the Institute of Transportation Studies, Berkeley, CA (2003-05).