People with Disabilities in the Conversation
Tags: Disability, Traffic, Vision Zero, Transportation, Walking

In cities around the world, Vision Zero has become an affirmation of governments’ main priority: to protect the public. The success of this affirmation lies in coalition building between affected residents, advocacy organizations, and sister government agencies. However, for all these efforts, there is one piece that often remains absent from the conversation around Vision Zero and its success: an explicit dialogue about how the disability community is being engaged and their voices reflected in our work. The main cause for this omission is governments’ missed opportunity of weaving the interests and demands of diverse stakeholders. This is particularly true of the interests of the disability community, and demands for improvements enhancing accessibility, in all Vision Zero initiatives.

I joined the New York City Department of Transportation a few months after the city’s Vision Zero agenda was made public in 2014. I started as the agencies’ first Policy Analyst for Accessibility. The task was to work closely with senior managers and their staff to bring forward efforts for enhancing the accessibility of our streets, and to establish a visible bridge between the agency and the disability community.

Every single Vision Zero project improves the streetscape, and therefore has the potential to enhance accessibility for all New Yorkers. For example, a protected bike lane adds medians to the roadway, which shortens the lengths of crosswalks and allows for refuge islands. These improvements are a huge win for pedestrians whose gait is not what it once used to be, or for people who lack the stamina to cross a long avenue without pausing. Raised crosswalks also benefit a wide range of our stakeholders. Advocates for reductions of vehicular speeds in residential neighborhoods love raised crosswalks; parents concerned about the visibility of their children are a huge fan of them; and, of course, the disability community sees a raised crosswalk as a tremendous win for the safety of their members. The same applies to our ever-growing aging population, who may feel at risk when they cannot make eye contact with the driver of an SUV or a freight vehicle. No matter the intervention, the Vision Zero toolbox is packed with solutions that affect walkability as much as livability.

Yet despite the wide potential of all these tools, often the public conversation about these interventions does not include the persons with disabilities who most benefit from them. Humans typically gravitate towards what they know best and what makes them feel comfortable, prohibiting us from seeing the world as it is. Thus blinded, we believe the world exists in the way that we experience it. This is why it can be exceedingly difficult for a person without a disability to consider what it would be like to navigate a street for a person with one. That is not a luxury that extends to government. It is our duty, as the guardians of the public, to protect all pedestrians’ experiences. Engineers, planners, and government officials must get comfortable speaking about accessibility, particularly about connecting the dots between the shared interests of people with and without disabilities and the fact that accessibility improvements benefit everyone. When city officials are not explicit about processes and public engagement, efforts to improve access for all stakeholders, especially vulnerable streets and road users, can go unnoticed.

I see my role at the New York City Department of Transportation as helping to transform this culture of fear into one of comfort with the unknown. Tapping into my own disability has been my strongest asset. As an internal advocate and policy officer, I have been able to fold diverse voices and experiences that have not always been present into the work of the agency. I have accomplished this by hosting various disability advocates, who represent a coalition of New Yorkers with disabilities, at the agency headquarters on a quarterly basis. I also maintain an open dialogue with the Mayor’s Office for Persons with Disabilities, and constantly update and solicit input from the commissioner and his staff on new projects. Together, we ensure that the interests and experiences of the disability community are thoroughly represented. Because of this, there is now a productive harmony between the disability community and agency staff. End users are talking with our planners, policy officers, and engineers, and together, we all carry the weight of the success of Vision Zero.

There are still more issues that we need to work out to institutionalize diverse voices and a sense of belonging into the process of transforming a street. But over the last five years, that missing piece of the puzzle has become a lot smaller. And it will continue to shrink as we bring more people of diverse backgrounds and mixed experiences to the table. Internally, we study the diversity of our projects and the communities we serve throughout the agency to better understand our own comfort zones and oversights. Externally, we hear from New Yorkers on their own time, via a mobile-first feedback portal.

As you tackle underrepresentation in your Vision Zero city, these steps are all important: open the conversation, make all stakeholders visible, and look for your own oversights. But another way we are trying to close the void of underrepresentation is by hiring more persons with disabilities in all sectors of government. Americans with disabilities are one of the largest overeducated minorities with one of the highest rates of unemployment. To my fellow individuals with disabilities I say this: we have always had a strong platform. It is time we jump on and join the conversations happening around us. The microphone has never been louder, and our voices are needed today, more than ever before.

[This article first appeared in Transportation Alternatives’ Vision Zero Cities Journal in 2019.]