Request for Information: Family Friendly Transit

Detroit Disability Power, a community partner of the University of Michigan's STPP, supports the initiative by highlighting the necessity of accessible and reliable transit for the disabled community. They argue that transportation barriers contribute to the marginalization of disabled residents and provide a framework for what constitutes an inclusive transit system.

Birkinbine Logistical Support Services Company, LLC submits the "USABahn framework," a proposal to create a national mobility interoperability framework to solve multi-modal fragmentation and accessibility issues. They argue that the FTA should update its public dashboard to include metrics for inter-agency handoff efficiency, pedestrian access viability, and unified ticketing to better serve families and ADA passengers.

New Gateways, Inc., a nonprofit organization serving adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, supports the FTA's effort to establish standardized transit quality metrics. They argue that the metrics should go beyond basic ADA compliance and operational statistics to include lived experience factors like independent usability, reliability for disability services, and a new performance area for customer experience.

Randal O’Toole argues that current transit systems are unsustainable and inaccessible because they focus on downtown centers while most modern jobs are located in "edge cities." He proposes that the FTA should measure transit's ability to serve these non-central economic centers and encourage a shift toward a polycentric business model using non-stop buses.