Identifying Barriers to Safe Mobility for Non-Drivers with Disabilities in North Carolina
Timeframe
2025-2026
Project Team
Alessandro Figueroa, Principal Investigator
Dan Gelinne, Project Manager
Elizabeth Pinyan, Co-Investigator
Stephen Heiny, Co-Investigator
Kristel Robison, Co-Investigator
Justin Owens, Co-Investigator
Anne Dickerson, Subject Matter Expert
Project Summary
Every day, non-drivers with disabilities in North Carolina experience a variety of transportation-based barriers on any given trip, making it hard or impossible to get to their destinations. Understanding these lived experiences and barriers is a crucial step that transportation safety stakeholders, planners, and practitioners can take when designing, building, and planning effective transportation systems. Traditional transportation-centered approaches to disability and accessibility can be improved through a better understanding of individual disability types and the experiences of individuals with disabilities who critically rely on different services within a transportation network. Most importantly, an improved understanding of disability by transportation safety stakeholders can result in dramatic improvements to community mobility and a sense of independence for North Carolinians with disabilities.
This project, funded by the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program, was designed to engage statewide disability groups in transportation safety discussions and capture transportation insights and experiences representing a diverse range of disabilities, locations, and circumstances throughout the state. The project team developed and distributed a statewide survey through statewide disability advocacy groups and packaged project findings in an educational module for North Carolina transportation safety stakeholders. This project further identified the most pressing barriers to safe mobility for non-drivers with disabilities in North Carolina.
Project Impact, Results, and Findings
- This project will provide transportation safety stakeholders with educational materials and resources on effective strategies for engaging disability groups in transportation safety discussions.
- Project results include materials capturing firsthand transportation experiences for people with disabilities, barriers to safe mobility, and opportunities for improved transportation services.
- Findings from this project can assist transportation safety stakeholders with better engaging and accounting for the disability perspective within transportation planning and safety efforts.
Funding Organization
North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program
Educational Module Video
Expected October 2026
Acknowledgments
The project team would like to acknowledge the generous work and time that Philip C. Woodward, of the North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities, put towards this project. Philip played an instrumental role in connecting the project team to individuals and organizations throughout the state. Philips dedication to disability advocacy and safety was crucial to the success of this project.
The project team would also like to acknowledge and thank each of the survey respondents and focus group participants that contributed to this project. Our team greatly appreciates and respects your willingness to share deeply personal and sensitive experiences in a larger effort to make transportation networks safer for all.
Contact Information
Alessandro Figueroa, a.figueroa@hsrc.unc.edu