ADA@35: We Reached a Milestone–Now Let’s Finish What We Started

BY JEFF MALTZ
CEO & Founder
and TANYA CASTLE
Director of Growth
SilverRide

Introduction: A Milestone Worth Honoring

Thirty-five years ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) promised a revolution. We’ve made real progress; buses are accessible, stations retrofitted, billions invested. But for 25.5 million Americans with travel-limiting disabilities, getting from point A to point B still feels like navigating an obstacle course. And it shouldn’t.

The transit experience should be as convenient, straightforward, and reliable as it is for people with no disabilities. Access to transportation isn’t just about mobility. It’s about dignity, independence, and the fundamental right to participate in American life.

When FTA Administrator Marc Molinaro challenged the industry at APTA’s TRANSform last month, asking “Will this make transit safer, more accessible, and more useful for American families?” he wasn’t just talking policy, he was talking about real people whose lives depend on getting this right.

The question isn’t whether we’ve made progress. We have. The question is whether we’re bold enough to finish what we started and remove the remaining obstacles. We can—and at this moment in history, we’ve got the right people and opportunities in place to make it happen.

Transportation: The ADA’s Next Challenge

Here’s what gets us energized: Administrator Molinaro didn’t just make accessibility a talking point, he made “universal accessibility and universal design” a federal priority. And he’s doing it with the credibility of someone who founded ThinkDIFFERENTLY—an initiative to change the way individuals, businesses, organizations and communities relate to neighbors with disabilities—before taking over the FTA.

Administrator Molinaro has challenged us to think bigger—to think differently—about how we serve the 25.5 million Americans with travel-limiting disabilities who need more than ramps and elevators. Infrastructure is essential, but it’s only one piece of the solution.

Riders with special needs aren’t just navigating infrastructure challenges; they’re navigating information gaps, communication barriers, and physical and intellectual needs that require the assistance of other humans.

We’re talking about people with dementia who can’t navigate unfamiliar routes; veterans with PTSD who need consistent and trusted drivers; people with visual impairments who require more than audio announcements to travel safely; and neurodivergent individuals, including those with autism, who need predictable routines and familiar faces to feel secure during travel.

Making Safety the Priority It Needs to Be

Administrator Molinaro put it plainly at TRANSform: “The safety of those who rely on transportation systems around America and the security of their systems is without question the top priority of this Administration.” This kind of clear, unequivocal federal leadership matters—and it’s exactly what’s needed to drive meaningful change across the industry.

He’s right to shine a spotlight here: this isn’t abstract policy, it’s urgent. Recent high-profile incidents involving mass transit and ride-hailing services have exposed how safety gaps affect everyone, but they disproportionately impact riders with disabilities who may be unable to quickly exit dangerous situations or clearly communicate distress.

Consider the daily reality: someone with mobility limitations can’t quickly exit a vehicle if they feel unsafe. A rider with cognitive impairment can’t easily verify driver identity or vehicle details.

The numbers tell a stark story. Nearly 2 million Americans report being homebound, and while accessibility barriers play a role, safety concerns are increasingly keeping vulnerable people isolated.

When 66 percent of potential riders never use paratransit services, we have to ask: is it just about schedules, or are people making calculated decisions about their personal safety?

The TNC Accessibility Gap

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: transportation network companies revolutionized mobility for most Americans, but they’ve largely left people with disabilities behind. The data tells a challenging story.

In cities where accessible rides exist, they represent just one out of every 1,400 trips. Meanwhile, autonomous vehicles—the supposed future of transportation—currently offer limited accessible options despite their growing presence in major metropolitan areas.

When it comes to wheelchair accessible vehicle (WAV) standards for TNCs, the ADA does not have consistent requirements, meaning cities (and transit agencies) are left to decide which communities receive full WAV service. That’s not just bad policy, it’s an equal opportunity challenge.

Safety is also a concern. Traditional TNCs rely on rapid driver onboarding with minimal background checks. For riders with disabilities who may be more vulnerable to exploitation or who require guidance entering and exiting vehicles, this creates additional risk layers that the industry largely ignores.

It’s part of why SilverRide doesn’t consider itself a “traditional” TNC, and it’s also why we’re able to deliver transportation with a high degree of care and support. Extensive driver background checks and credentialing aren’t a “nice to have,” they’re a must have, in our opinion.

Every SilverRide driver undergoes comprehensive Level II background checks, completes drug and alcohol testing, and verifies robust credentialing before they ever serve a rider on our platform. They are verified to have the skills necessary to work with this population and maintain ongoing certification requirements.

They’re not just moving people from point A to point B, they’re providing assisted transportation, guidance, companionship, and reassurance to riders with cognitive differences, vision impairments, mobility challenges, neurodivergent conditions, advanced age-related needs, and complex medical conditions. Our drivers understand that a person with dementia might not remember the destination address, or that someone recovering from surgery needs help with seatbelts.

The Path Forward

We need to reframe how we see these challenges. They’re not insurmountable problems; they’re significant market opportunities. The demand for assisted and more-accessible transportation is massive.

The need for reliable, safe transportation affects not just individuals, but entire healthcare systems, employers, and communities trying to age in place. As we’ve written previously in Passenger Transport, this represents both a public safety imperative and a business opportunity for companies willing to meet these specialized needs.

The solution isn’t to abandon public transportation, it’s to recognize that comprehensive accessibility requires both public investment and private innovation working together. One-third of Americans with disabilities have no access to public transit or paratransit.

Even well-funded systems face infrastructure failures (ex. elevators break down at “accessible” stations, creating temporary but significant barriers for riders who planned around that accessibility).

The aging population will only intensify these challenges, making accessible transportation not just a civil rights issue, but an economic necessity for communities nationwide.

What Comes After the Milestone?

The ADA gave us a roadmap. Transit agencies have made the investments. Now, we need the courage to admit that infrastructure alone isn’t enough.

As Administrator Molinaro put it, we need to be “laser-focused on outcomes that actually improve the daily lives of Americans, not reports that don’t prove out reality, but real results.” Real results mean acknowledging that transit equity requires consistency, inclusion, reliability, and truly enabling riders to live full and independent lives.

The 35^th anniversary isn’t a finish line, it’s a checkpoint. We’ve built the foundation, but there are still millions of Americans for whom transportation remains a daily struggle. The solution isn’t choosing between public investment and private innovation, it’s recognizing that comprehensive accessibility requires both.

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We need to support the systems that work—accessible transit investments, improved paratransit eligibility, and reliable specialized services that ensure no one gets left behind. The American dream of mobility and independence isn’t just for some Americans. It’s for all of us.

The question isn’t whether we can afford to finish this work. It’s whether we can afford not to.