Research in Motion: A Case Study Evaluating the Accessibility of Public Transit in our Nation’s Capital

摘要

Although the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed by Congress two decades ago,there are still public facilities that have a long way to go in order to meet the goal ofbeing “barrier-free.” Unfortunately, some of these places include public transportationsystems that many people with disabilities rely on daily. During a recent consulting jobregarding accessibility and environmental design, we decided to put the public Metrosystem in Washington, DC to the test. We wanted to determine how easy it is to accessand use the system for people who rely on wheelchairs. We were surprised that this casestudy revealed serious and multiple barriers to accessibility. We learned that many humanfactors issues regarding accessible design were not achieved by this system, even at amodest level.