Learning from the Travel Experiences of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs)

Unit: Department of Urban and Regional Planning

Project Abstract:
This project investigates the travel behavior of persons with disabilities (PWDs) focusing especially on barriers that they experience in the Denver region. Researchers know a great deal about mobility and safety of the broader population. However, the micro-geography of travel of PWDs, who travel largely on infrastructure that is designed for those without disabilities, is not well understood. Using a smartphone app, our primary objective is to map, at a fine grain, the travel patterns of volunteer PWDs and compare these trips with those of non-PWDs. Our community partner is the Denver Regional Mobility & Access Council (DRMAC). We aim to learn from DRMAC as subject matter experts and work with them to disseminate our findings for identifying gaps and adjusting infrastructure standards in the Denver region and the Front Range communities. Specifically, we aim to reassess standards for sidewalks and transit with a focus on curb cuts, transit stops, street furniture, and parking for micro-mobility devices such as e-scooters. We also designed this project as a proof-of-concept to test within the Denver region and will seek funding for scaling up to other cities with more diverse populations (including older adults over 64 years), topography, and weather.

View project updates from the 2021 Fall Research Showcase [PDF]

Manish Shirgaokar Bio:
Manish is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the College of Architecture and Planning. His research and teaching are centered on transportation and social equity. He teaches seminar and lab-based courses in transportation planning/policy, data analytics, and geographic information systems at the University of Colorado Denver. As a scholar, Manish focuses on how transportation systems help or hinder the mobility of disadvantaged groups such as older adults, women, immigrants, and low-income households. He works on topics in the United States, India, and Canada.

He has been a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) of the American Planning Association (APA) since 2014. Before joining academia Manish worked as a private sector consultant in India (2005-07; 1997-99) and at the Institute of Transportation Studies, Berkeley, CA (2003-05).Prior to starting the position at CU Denver, he was an assistant professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. Over the 4.5 years I spent in Canada, Manish taught and supervised research students in Planning, Geography, and Transportation Engineering in classroom/seminar, studio, and lab-based settings. He is the 2017 recipient of the Emerging Scholar Award of the Regional Development and Planning Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.