Critical approaches to access : rethinking first and last mile access to opportunities for disabled people

The disability community has been largely underrepresented in the transportation planning process, resulting in accessibility challenges and limitations in access and mobility. Disability rates in the U.S. have increased from 12.5% in 2010 to 13.4% in 2020 and is expected to continue to trend upwards. My dissertation contributes to understanding how disabled people experience the first and last mile segments of public transit trips to access the opportunities they need. To analyze this phenomenon, I frame first and last mile planning for disabled people within the theoretical framework of mobility justice, providing new connections between transportation systems, decisions, and experiences. Scholars can be most effective in advancing justice by shifting power away from planners and agency leaders to capitalize on citizen-led planning goals. This work examines if greater involvement and recognition in the engagement, data analysis, and planning process for the disability community, using a critical lens, can transportation planning for disabled people. My work centers disabled travelers by integrating their experiences throughout the planning process, rather than making assumptions based on insufficient data about pedestrian and transit environments. Using a mixed-methods research design, I compare missing sidewalk infrastructure, public agency planning for transit riders with disabilities, and the travel experiences of disabled transit riders along the first and last mile. I find contextual and intersectional burdens along the first and last mile trip segments for disabled people who use public transit and discuss how spatial and socioeconomic inequities impact these burdens. My dissertation makes three contributions to transportation planning scholarship. I situate first and last mile trips within the complex, socio-political realm of the existing built environment and social systems that link the travel behavior of disabled people with intersectionality, social exclusion, and equitable active transportation. My pedestrian network analysis of missing sidewalk infrastructure uses a novel approach to suggest that first and last mile conditions are needed in measures of access to opportunity. Lastly, I propose that intersectionality, and the complex factors that contribute to a traveler’s identity, need to be prioritized in the transportation planning process.