Americans with Disabilities Act, Paratransit, and Dialysis

Abstract

In transportation, a potential conflict exists between the needs of people who are dependent on kidney dialysis to support life and the mandates of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), which protects the civil rights of people who are disabled. To address this conflict, baseline information about existing transportation patterns for people on dialysis treatment was established. An original survey questionnaire was administered in person, by trained interviewers, to 289 recipients of dialysis treatments in Delaware. The questions focused on critical transportation issues and were designed to obtain information about transportation user patterns to and from dialysis treatments; transportation modes used to and from dialysis treatments; points of origin and destination; length of trip in distance and time; the way transportation arrangements are made, by whom, and at what cost; and alternative public transportation modes that dialysis riders would be willing to use. Social demographic characteristic questions were also included. Although the understanding of mobility patterns and modes of transportation employed by dialysis users has been increased, the supposition that ADA has created problems directly for dialysis recipients in transportation is not substantiated. Before this research, however, no empirical information was available.