Providing accessible transport for people with disabilities in the Ethekwini municipal area: unpacking the options

Abstract

Paper presented at the 30th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 11-14 July 2011 "Africa on the Move", CSIR International Convention Centre, Pretoria, South Africa.

It is estimated that 4.5% of the approximately 3.29 million residents of eThekwini are people with disabilities (PWD). In this regard, one of the key developmental pillars of the metro is to promote the concept of an accessible city by ensuring universal access to facilities and public transport. However, planning for transport for people with disabilities has not received adequate attention as evidenced by the fact that there are only three accessible buses (adapted) servicing eThekwini. The following constitute contributory factors as to why a fully accessible public transport system is still but a pipedream: Social (cultural attitudes that tend to wish away andlor render PWD together with the concerns invisible) Financial (limited resources dedicated to improving transport for PWD) Economic (the relatively high costs of retrofitting the built environment and the vehicles to be accessible) Institutional (stakeholders have tended to function in silos and therefore there is no integration in planning for accessible transport), and Political (universal access to facilities and public transport has not been prioritized nor championed and therefore there is no coherent and integrated policy). This paper, which is based on a study that was conducted in 2007 by the eThekwini Transport Authority (ETA), will profile the travel patterns of PWD in the Ethekwini Municipal Area, unpack their travel constraints, speculate on the raison d'6tre for the relative inaction from across the stakeholder community in terms of addressing these challenges, provide a bouquet of intervention options across the entire travel chain undergirded by an implementation framework as well as reflect on what interventions have since been implemented.