Project BASTIIA: Building Accessible and Sustainable Transportation for Increased Independence - Arizona

AZ-Sonoran UCEDD
Program Type	UCEDD	Fiscal Year	2012
Contact	Leslie Cohen, JD
Email	[email protected]
Phone	520-626-2369
Project Description
Approximately 75% or 4.8 million of the state's 6.4 million residents live in Maricopa or Pima counties; the remaining l.6 million or 25% of the state's residents are spread across the peripheral 13 counties and hundreds of small to medium rural and semi-rural towns and cities that typically lack the state-of-the-art transportation facilities and infrastructure of metropolitan centers. Smaller cities and towns across Arizona continue to struggle with the challenge of increasing the availability of accessible transportation modalities that allow persons with developmental disabilities to travel to work or school or access healthcare or recreation. The purpose of this project is to address the transportation needs of persons with developmental disabilities living in cities and towns smaller than 82,000 by developing and implementing a transportation pilot model in one Arizona community. That pilot model will then be evaluated to determine its viability for replication in other Arizona communities under 82,000. BASTIIA is a multi-stage multipronged community based project whose two ultimate outcomes are: (1) to increase accessible transportation capacity for persons with developmental disabilities, their families and caregivers, and (2) help these same people achieve greater independence via accessible and sustainable transportation systems. The activities under the grant will include: conducting a literature review and needs assessment to identify the key features and obstacles and develop a systematic strategy aimed at implementing a sustainable and accessible transportation system; identify (4) cities and towns smaller than 82,000 people with relatively high proportions of persons with developmental disabilities; determine which of the (4) identified Arizona communities may benefit most from increased transportation services based on such issues as the degree to which they have existing human, material, and financial resources that may be effectively adapted and mobilized toward developing an accessible transportation system; develop and implement one transportation pilot model in the identified community that will increase the capacity of persons with developmental disabilities and their families to achieve greater independence through improved and enhanced transportation services; develop an evaluation framework for measuring identified outcomes related to successfully reproducing the model; evaluate the pilot transportation model to determine its applicability to other Arizona communities under 82,000.