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STATUS: In Progress YEAR: 2026 TOPIC AREA: Transportation planning, policy, and finance CENTER: PSR

Disability, Mode Perceptions, and Travel Behavior

Project Summary

Project Number: PSR-25-M01

Funding Source: Caltrans

Total Cost: $109,843

Performance Period: January 2026 - March 2027

Project Description:

Despite the more than three decades since the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disabilities, which comprise roughly one quarter of the US population, still face considerable challenges to their mobility and access. They make fewer trips and are more dependent on others because of deficiencies in pedestrian infrastructure, transit and for-hire vehicles, and specialized paratransit services. While there is a considerable amount of research that identifies the breadth of mobility challenges and access barriers, limited research has addressed how these mobility challenges influence mode choice for people with disabilities. This project will develop and administer a web-based survey by oversampling California residents with disabilities to understand how disability influences mode choice, accounting for perceptions of the built environment and mode-specific challenges. The research team anticipates using several analytical methods to answer the research questions, including descriptive statistics, basic statistical tests of comparison, and multinomial logistic regression. The research team aims to engage with disability-serving organizations to ensure that the survey reflects real concerns and will provide meaningful data, and to share results in support of universal access goals that the organizations and public agencies are pursuing.