Prepared Remarks of Michael A. Winter

Michael A. Winter
Associate Administrator
for Budget and Policy
Federal Transit Administration

Prepared Remarks

Benefits Roundtable on Accessible Transportation
September 17-18, 2000
Embassy Suites Hotel, Alexandria Virginia

Welcome

I would like to thank you all for taking the time to prepare for and attend this roundtable. We are especially grateful to have with us leaders of America’s principal disability rights organizations:

  • AMERICAN DISABLED for ATTENDANT PROGRAMS TODAY (adapt)
  • The national council on Disabilities
  • Paralyzed veterans of america
  • the National council on independent living
  • the disability rights education and defense fund (dredf)
  • The National Council on Aging
  • The President’s council on employment for people with disabilities, and
  • The Transportation Research Board, Howard University, and other academic institutions

I think you will agree that in the Clinton era we have witnessed unprecedented advances in the rights of people with disabilities. I have had the honor of working on Over-the-road bus access, the air access act, and accessible rural transportation. I can tell you it has been a great experience for me, my family, and my friends—many of them here this morning. Moreover, we’re not done.  We fully expect to gain more ground in the months and years to come. And that’s what this Roundtable is about; what’s next?

Civil Rights

ADA established once and for all that accessibility is a civil right to which everyone is entitled. Although contention persists in the implementation of ADA, we consider the right to access a matter of settled law and policy. We will continue to reinforce the law through decisive leadership on every front.

Measuring benefits

Project action invited you here today to discuss a new topic. Or, rather, and old topic in a fresh way. We want to document the measurable benefits that accessible transportation produces in our communities.

Increasingly, the department of transportation is called upon to measure and document the benefits of its programs. This emphasis coincides with a seismic shift from building transportation systems to getting the most out of the systems we have built. In recent years fta has significantly improved its ability to measure the benefits of public transit. In so doing, we have found that transit benefits far exceed its costs.

So we ask, why not measure the benefits of accessible transportation? The question is not limited to direct benefits for recipients of accessible transportation. What is the benefit of accessible transportation to the recipient’s family, friends, neighbors, and employers? What are the benefits of accessible transportation to the larger public in the community, the state and the country? Naming benefits no longer suffices; we want measures. To measure the value of accessible transportation is to silence those critics who only measure costs. To measure the value of access is to change the budgetary process at all levels of government.

Economic measurement

In the past, economic measurement has been used principally to deny accessible transportation. This is due to the academic economist’s cautious inclination to count only benefits that are beyond the hint of controversy. While understandable for research, Such caution is unsound for decision-making. Such caution systematically discounts downstream benefits, however large, simply because their causal link with accessible transportation is uncertain. In the name of a caution that is essential in academic circles, Most economic analysis has failed decisionmakers who need to choose among uncertain alternatives with enormous stakes. All too often, in fact, the analysts have chosen to minimize the stakes, wishing them away in the name of academic purity. If such caution were the basis of investments, there would be little entrepreneurship and a much smaller economy today. If such caution were the basis of public policy, there would be few roads and bridges that make commerce possible.

Public policy as public choice

Public policy goals consist of compromises to resolve differences among contending forces in society. Rational goals in the public sector, since they are the product of contention as often as cooperation, have given rise to the idea of public choice. We have used public choice concepts to measure the benefits of existing transit services. We use public choice to identify the diverse constituencies that receive diverse transit service profiles We think many public policy goals produce practical direct benefits to program participants and indirect benefits to other taxpayers. In this respect, Accessible transportation, as a national goal, is no different than other policy goals.

When policymakers and planners are considering investments, they naturally look to constitutencies for their political support.  If you—seated around this table--can start the ball rolling to more effectively measure these benefits, a very tangible change could follow.  Measurement can increase the influence of people with disabilities in transit budgets. As mentioned earlier, Nothing will more quickly silence critics who dwell on costs. The most effective support a constituency can give is that which demonstrates benefits to other constituencies.   Thus, data on ADA benefits can also increase the influence of transit itself in getting a greater share of the public sector budget.

In this way, benefit measurement for accessible transportation can make the case for transportation in general.

Conclusion

Increasingly, transportation needs to measure its benefits to society. Among the most important of these benefits is accessibility for disadvantaged people. In measuring accessibility benefits, we forge partnerships across the transportation industry. As you proceed, we ask you to consider this vital link between measurement, policy, and budgets. In closing, thanks again for coming and please let me know if there is anything i can do to make your stay more pleasant and your participation more effective.

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