Transportation options limited for poor or disabled rural S.C. residents

By RICK BRUNDRETT

Editor’s note: Today’s story is part of a two-article package on transportation issues facing South Carolina. The other story can be found here.

For South Carolinians living in poverty or with disabilities, the lack of reliable transportation often is a major problem – especially in rural areas, say the leaders of two advocacy organizations.

Since last year, The Nerve has reported about the lack of private transportation options in small municipalities and rural counties statewide. In September, The Nerve revealed, based on a review of state records, that getting a ride from a “transportation network company,” such as Uber or Lyft, likely is difficult in at least 100 small towns or cities, and three rural counties.

In a companion story then, The Nerve revealed that at least 10% of rural households in nine counties in 2021 had no vehicles, with more than half of the state’s counties above the national average in that category, based on available federal data.

A pending S.C. House bill would, according to supporters, make it easier for certain private transportation businesses to operate in rural areas, as The Nerve has reported.

“Transportation remains one of the most persistent barriers for South Carolinians experiencing poverty,” Donna Waites, president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina, said in a written statement this month to The Nerve.

“When reliable, accessible transit options are limited – particularly in rural communities – people face compounded challenges reaching jobs, healthcare, education, and essential services,” added Waites, who holds a Master of Arts degree in organizational leadership from Columbia College, according to the foundation’s website.

The site says that the foundation “strategically uses resources to reduce poverty through action, advocacy and leadership,” noting that since its inception in 1996, it has distributed more than $82 million to over 1,100 nonprofits “working to reduce poverty in the lives of individuals and families in the Palmetto State.”

The Columbia-based foundation sponsored two state poverty studies published last year. In one of the studies produced by the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, some study participants “shared concerns about lack of transportation in their communities, which prevents people from getting to jobs and accessing everyday needs, like food and healthcare.”

“Therefore, you can’t get a job because you don’t have a car or a reliable car, because you don’t have the money to pay for a car, to pay for insurance, to pay to fix it,” a woman in her 50s who lives in a rural community said in the USC study.

“I am very thankful of the churches that assist with food,” the study quoted another participant as saying. “(The food bank) is quite a ways away, so a lot of times it’s not easy to get over there just because they are so far away, and especially financially, having to waste the gas.”

The other study, produced by Charleston-based Mpowrd Analytics, said transportation “inaccessibility was reported to further compound economic hardship, particularly for those living in rural and underserved areas,” adding, “Participants stressed that without reliable transportation, accessing employment, education, and healthcare is extremely difficult.”

“Public transportation is nonexistent in some parts of the state, which makes it impossible for people without a car to get to work,” the study said, quoting a veteran.

An executive summary of the studies recommended making public transportation “broadly accessible.”

‘Next to nothing’

South Carolina’s disabled population also faces special transportation challenges.

In an interview this month with The Nerve, Kimberly Tissot, president and chief executive officer of Able South Carolina, which has offices in Columbia and Greenville, said transportation is “one of the biggest barriers for the disability community,” adding, “In the rural communities, the transportation there is next to nothing.”

“South Carolina has the eighth-highest unemployment rate for people with disabilities, and people point at transportation as being one of the key reasons,” said Tissot, who is a cancer survivor and an amputee and holds a Master of Social Work degree from USC, according to Able South Carolina’s website.

The site describes the organization, which has been operating since 1994, as a “disability-led organization seeking transformational changes in systems, communities, and individuals.” It is the state’s oldest and largest federally recognized, disability-led organization; people with disabilities make up more than three-quarters of the staff and over half of the organization’s governing board, according to the site.

As for transportation needs, Tissot said while the advocacy of disabled people in the 1960s and 1970s eventually led to ramps and hydraulic lifts on public buses, South Carolina’s infrastructure problems make it difficult for some disabled people to use fixed bus routes.

“So you can have an accessible bus that drops you off in the grass,” she said. “That’s not going to be feasible for people with physical disabilities to be dropped off.”

Tissot said local municipalities need to offer more “paratransit” options, which are mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and generally involve accessible vehicles making prearranged, door-to-door or curb-to-curb drop-offs and pickups for people with disabilities who can’t use traditional fixed-route public transportation.

“There are a lot of strict laws around this; they’re supposed to have either a paratransit bus or contract with a taxicab company that has accessible vehicles,” she said. “And that is where, again, South Carolina fails.”

Asked about the pending state House bill that supporters contend would likely increase the number of private transportation businesses operating in rural areas, Tissot said while it protects rides to medical appointments for disabled people, she would like to see included language “around disability access, ADA compliance,” with an advisory oversight panel to protect disabled riders.

“People with disabilities aren’t sick,” she said. “We also work and go to school and grocery shopping. We have a community life that is really important. So that is where we’ve been overlooked.”

‘Not a niche issue’

For the annual “Advocacy Day for Access and Independence” last April, Able South Carolina made recommendations in five areas to state lawmakers, including developing a statewide transportation plan to help local governments secure federal funding to expand public transit access for people with disabilities.

That section noted disabled people are “twice as likely to lack reliable transportation, especially in rural areas.”

“South Carolina lawmakers hold the keys” that can “unlock barriers standing in the way of independence, opportunity, and the God-given right to live freely in our communities,” the legislative guide said, noting that 1.3 million South Carolinians live with a disability.

Separately, Able South Carolina in September issued seven recommendations in response to last year’s passage of the federal “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” including several rural transportation proposals:

• Expanding Medicaid coverage for non-emergency medical transportation in accordance with disability standards established under the ADA and federal transportation regulations.
• Piloting community-based, on-demand ride programs with wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
• Partnering with Centers for Independent Living, which are federally designated local, non-residential, disability-support organizations, to “design beneficiary-focused mobility solutions.”

“Disability is not a niche issue; it’s central to rural health transformation,” the introduction for the recommendations stated. “One of three adults in South Carolina has a disability, and in rural areas, rates are even higher. People with disabilities experience worse health outcomes, higher poverty, and greater unemployment than the general population.

“These inequities are not due to disability itself but to persistent barriers: inaccessible transportation, lack of trained providers, inadequate broadband, and policies that fail to require inclusion.”

In the S.C. General Assembly so far this year, there are no pending bills focused solely on expanding rural transportation options for the state’s disabled population.

Brundrett is the news editor of The Nerve (www.thenerve.org). Contact him at 803-394-8273 or [email protected]. Follow The Nerve on Facebook, Instagram and X (formerlyTwitter) @thenervesc.

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