What transportation services can rural communities provide for people with disabilities?
Access to transportation is a major issue for people with disabilities living in rural areas. Some options that can increase transit options for people with disabilities include flexroutes, which allow for fixed transit routes to add on additional stops as needed, and voucher programs, which allow riders to decide who drives them, where and when. To learn about flexroutes, see the Handbook for Rural Flexroute Implementation. To learn about voucher programs, see the Great Plains Rural Initiative on Transportation (GRIT). By combining transportation services to different special populations as well as the general public, people can be served by routes that are close to where they live rather than just routes funded by the agency that serves them. Communities may want to explore the use of vehicles, such as school buses, that are only used part time to provide other services. Strategies that partner transit providers with volunteer or paid individual drivers to provide needed transit are
