Percentage of People with and without Disabilities who Commute by Public Transit, 2016
Use of transportation is an important indicator for community participation. Transportation has been identified as one of the biggest barriers for people with disabilities. We compared the percent of people 16 and older with and without disabilities that work and commute by public transit. We can see patterns of higher use of public transit for work with people with disabilities in the Pacific coast region (WA, CA, OR, NV), parts of the Midwest (MN, IL) and Mid-Atlantic region (NY, PA, NJ, MD). Use of public transit for work is higher among people with disabilities when compared to people without disabilities, while use of car is lower among people with disabilities when compared to people without disabilities. Higher percentage of commute by public transit and lower percentage of commute by car among people with disabilities may be due to limited accessibility and affordability of private cars and low economic status of people with disabilities. While ACS proposed targeting transportation data in future, currently, data from a limited number of cities is available. Future ACS data will allow us to track changes of public transportation use in cities that recently updated their public transit system (e.g. Chicago).
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Data source. 2016, American Community Survey (ACS), 5 year Estimates. Table S1811, selected economic characteristics for the civilian noninstitutionalized population by disability status.
Calculation. Number of workers aged 16 and above with/without a disability who commute by public transport divided by the total number of workers aged 16 and above with/without a disability. ACS Table S1811 provides these percentages.
Percentage of People with and without Disabilities who Commute by Public Transit by region
Click on a state to view city data.
| Region | With a disability | Without a disability |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 5.7% | 5.1% |
| Alabama | 0.9% | 0.4% |
| Alaska | 3.2% | 1.5% |
| Arizona | 3.7% | 1.9% |
| Arkansas | 1.0% | 0.4% |
| California | 7.2% | 5.1% |
| Colorado | 4.7% | 3.1% |
| Connecticut | 6.7% | 4.8% |
| Delaware | 6.1% | 2.7% |
| District of Columbia | 40.5% | 36.9% |
| Florida | 3.1% | 2.1% |
| Georgia | 3.1% | 2.0% |
| Hawaii | 8.4% | 7.1% |
| Idaho | 1.4% | 0.7% |
| Illinois | 9.5% | 9.2% |
| Indiana | 2.2% | 1.0% |
| Iowa | 3.7% | 1.0% |
| Region | With a disability | Without a disability |
|---|---|---|
| Kansas | 1.4% | 0.4% |
| Kentucky | 1.9% | 1.0% |
| Louisiana | 2.2% | 1.3% |
| Maine | 0.9% | 0.6% |
| Maryland | 10.1% | 8.9% |
| Massachusetts | 9.8% | 10.0% |
| Michigan | 3.6% | 1.3% |
| Minnesota | 8.7% | 3.3% |
| Mississippi | 0.8% | 0.4% |
| Missouri | 3.2% | 1.4% |
| Montana | 2.2% | 0.7% |
| Nebraska | 1.9% | 0.6% |
| Nevada | 6.8% | 3.4% |
| New Hampshire | 1.6% | 0.8% |
| New Jersey | 11.8% | 11.2% |
| New Mexico | 2.1% | 1.1% |
| New York | 25.4% | 28.2% |
| Region | With a disability | Without a disability |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | 1.6% | 1.1% |
| North Dakota | 1.8% | 0.4% |
| Ohio | 4.6% | 1.5% |
| Oklahoma | 0.9% | 0.4% |
| Oregon | 6.5% | 4.3% |
| Pennsylvania | 7.4% | 5.5% |
| Rhode Island | 4.0% | 2.7% |
| South Carolina | 1.0% | 0.6% |
| South Dakota | 2.3% | 0.4% |
| Tennessee | 1.7% | 0.7% |
| Texas | 2.5% | 1.5% |
| Utah | 4.8% | 2.4% |
| Vermont | 1.5% | 1.2% |
| Virginia | 4.9% | 4.4% |
| Washington | 7.3% | 6.2% |
| West Virginia | 1.7% | 0.8% |
| Wisconsin | 4.1% | 1.7% |
| Wyoming | 3.1% | 1.4% |