6
A Human Rights-Based Approach to Engineering and Inclusive Transportation

In recent decades, researchers and policymakers have increasingly recognized the ways in which transportation affects social inclusion for individuals with disabilities and the aging population. This activity session¹⁸ examined how a human rights–based approach to engineering—grounded in principles of distributive justice, participation, accountability, indivisibility of rights, and responsibilities of duty bearers—can inform inclusive transportation infrastructure design. Symposium participants explored strategies to incorporate these principles into the public- and private-sector dimensions of transportation systems design. This session also aimed to demonstrate how instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)¹⁹ can support evaluations of civil engineering projects and complement existing engineering ethics codes. The session facilitators were Michael Ashley Stein, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Harvard Law School Project on Disability; Shareen Hertel, Wiktor Osiatyński Chair of Human Rights and Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut; and Davis Chacón-Hurtado, Assistant Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Co-Director of the Engineering for Human Rights Initiative at the University of Connecticut.

Before the symposium, participants broke into small groups to discuss the case study that comprised the activity (presented in Box 6-1) and explore the meaning of engineering for human rights principles in practical terms. Chacón-Hurtado briefly reiterated that a human rights–based approach to engineering involves assessing the social effects of engineering; developing new paradigms in engineering education; identifying needs for workforce development; and promoting an aspirational role for engineering in addressing civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights. He noted that engineering is at the core of human development. As an example, he displayed a map illustrating food insecurity risks in Connecticut—one of the wealthiest states in the United States. When discussing with his students the pressing challenges that engineering seeks to solve, he underscores that significant issues, such as access to food, persist even in their own communities. Chacón-Hurtado emphasized that engineers are trained to approach problems with a structured, technical framework, but many human rights concerns fall outside this traditional approach. By broadening perspectives and incorporating new frameworks, engineers

can translate “nontechnical” problems, such as food insecurity, into concrete challenges that they can effectively address. Similarly, opportunities exist for engineers to help address the higher rates of poverty among people with disabilities, particularly those of marginalized and underrepresented groups, compared to those without disabilities.

Stein noted that many of the engineering design choices that adversely affect people with disabilities result from ableism, or the choices people in power and without a disability make based on the idea that the world is and should be for able-bodied people. Because of this attitude, public institutions that should be available to everyone, such as post offices and courthouses, have often been built with stairs, which prevent certain people from accessing them. Disrupting this model, said Stein, puts the burden on society to embrace people with disabilities rather than to continue to exclude them.

Stein explained that many solutions that engineers have developed to accommodate people with disabilities are now used by others in society, a phenomenon known as the “curb cut effect.” This refers to curb cuts in sidewalks at intersections that not only enable people using wheelchairs to move from the sidewalk to the street and vice versa, but also make that transition easier for older individuals, people pushing strollers, and bicycle riders, for example. Other examples include text to voice and voice to text applications, which are now considered default settings, begging the questions: “What is normal?” “What is expected?” “What is an add-on?”

REPORTS FROM THE BREAKOUT GROUPS

The symposium participants, including those attending virtually, broke into small groups to discuss the case study (Box 6-1) and answer a set of questions (Box 6-2) designed to explore key considerations about barriers to inclusive transportation and ways for engineers to help offset them. After 40 minutes of discussion, a rapporteur from each group reported to the reassembled symposium.

The first group offered as one solution the addition of staff to provide more support for individuals taking public transportation, such as helping them get on a bus. This group noted that additional staffing would be critical for addressing nonvisible disabilities such as cognitive-behavioral and psychological challenges. The principles of participation and distributive justice support this approach, as do Articles 19²⁰ and 26²¹ of the CRPD²² that address expanding access to recreational areas and greenspace and ensuring transit opportunities for all.

Another solution discussed by this group was the establishment of “micro-transit” optimized routing to ensure that the transportation system serves as much of the population as possible. The distributive principle and CRPD Articles 9²³ and 30²⁴ support this action. A third solution, backed by participation and distributive principles and Article 9, was the construction of shelters at transit stops to protect travelers from inclement weather. Finally, instituting flat-

rate fares would ensure that individuals are not penalized for taking longer rides, which addresses distributive justice. This group noted that these engineering principles can provide a foundation and common language for discussing solutions, as well as serve as prompts to carefully examine proposed solutions.

The second group focused on a solution for people who are visually impaired. It suggested that the city—the duty bearers—add a sound system to the transportation system. All five human rights–based engineering principles applied to this solution. This group also suggested establishing a city-monitored phone line for reporting outages.

The third group identified the same solutions as the first two groups but reported difficulty developing solutions without first engaging with and hearing from the community. This group believed that almost all the CRPD Articles would be useful for centering solutions on the community.

Group four also wanted to involve the community in discussions before identifying solutions and noted that inconsistent regulations and budget limitations would affect any solution. One solution was to create a ramp-molding tool to guide the construction of ramps with regulated dimensions for uniformity and accountability. This tool would enable community members to determine whether ramps were out of specification or needed maintenance by giving them a reference standard. It would also allow unskilled labor to create the ramps.

The fifth group did not identify solutions and instead discussed the community engagement practices that it would use to solicit solutions from the community, such as government solicitation of public feedback. Group six focused on identifying the root dissatisfactions of travelers. It identified CRPD Articles 5²⁵, 11²⁶, and 18²⁷, and especially the above-cited Articles 26 and 30, as being most relevant. Another solution was the addition of an audio alert system to each tram station that would detect a person’s arrival and notify nearby drivers that a passenger was waiting at the station. It also suggested taking a phased approach of adding one tram station per year to enable experimentation and improvement. Its third suggestion was the creation of a government-funded, dynamically expandable fleet that would enlist supplementary taxi or ride-share drivers when needed and alert riders that although the next tram might pass them by, the supplementary ride would arrive shortly.

The next group to report said it considered the needs of people with invisible disabilities as well as those with visible disabilities. It noted that transitions in the transportation system could create stress and anxiety, particularly for people with certain cognitive disabilities. Audio and visual alerts could help ease those transitions. This group pointed out that CRPD addresses not only equal access to information, but also the right to freedom of expression on an equal basis with others. Also important, this group said, is ensuring that the system is safe for service animals.

The final in-person group discussed features such as awnings and shelters, as well as increased visibility for signage. This group discussed the importance of these frameworks to helping first-time designers ensure that they address all relevant issues.

The online groups discussed the creation of a new system of autonomous point-to-point vehicles specifically geared toward people with disabilities that could improve accessibility and address all the issues identified in the case study. The online groups noted the importance of recognizing that people with disabilities are unique in their needs and desires, and of involving people who deliver services—for example, bus drivers, maintenance people—in designing changes to the system.

Summarizing the discussions, Stein highlighted resource constraints as an ever-present issue, adding that addressing these types of issues at the beginning of the design process rather than retrofitting systems is far less expensive. Drawing on his extensive work on the CRPD, he noted that its framework is less about the law and more about how one wishes societies to be developed. He added that the CRPD is also relevant to older individuals, which is particularly significant given global demographic trends. He explained that in the coming decades, the proportion of households worldwide that include individuals with disabilities or those over age 60 is expected to rise substantially (Vespa et al., 2018).

FINAL REMARKS FROM DAY 1

Glen Daigger, Professor of Engineering Practice at the University of Michigan, President and Founder of One Water Solutions, LLC, provided comments to close the symposium’s first day. He noted that a code of ethics is not sufficient to address human rights issues, adding that “engineers not only need principles, they need to know how to operationalize them.” Toward that end, the day’s discussions showed how a human rights framework can help engineers operationalize what they should be doing to accomplish the outcomes embodied in codes of ethics. He added that synergy exists between engineering and the human rights community; when engineers perform their jobs the way they should, human rights are advanced. In reference to the importance of diverse participation in engineering decision making, Daigger noted, “Engineering is a team sport, and not all the players are engineers.”

Daigger noted that engineers are usually not the decision makers, raising questions about the appropriate role of engineers in the decision-making process. Efforts to expand the role of engineers in that process could benefit from the framework for engineering and human rights discussed during the day, as well as an understanding of how that framework can guide engineers’ work. That is a role that engineering education needs to play going forward, said Daigger.