Public transport provides access to education, healthcare, social services, and work. However, Persons with disabilities face extreme challenges when navigating public transport. Article 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities(UNCRPD) states that state parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal access to facilities, transportation services, and the physical environment. Consequently, Article 54. of the constitution of Kenya requires that persons with disabilities be treated with respect and dignity and have access to education, information, and public transport.  

Flone Initiative conducted a writing competition targeting students with disabilities from higher learning institutions. The key areas of focus were the social, policy, and technical challenges they undergo while navigating public transport. Some of the main challenges highlighted were the inaccessibility of public transport vehicles and the lack of accommodative infrastructure to ease their access to their learning institutions.

For instance, Patience Akinyi, a student from Mount Kenya University, highlights her difficulties as a person with left-side paralysis resulting from a stroke at the age of 14 years. She narrates her challenges in accessing medical care while living in a village in Siaya County. The distance from her home to the bus station was far, and the roads to the bus station were in poor condition. Therefore, the community devised a solution to carry her to the nearest bus station and have two people support her on the motorbike. These are some of the challenges faced by individuals with physical impairment. Poor infrastructure conditions create obstacles in smoothly navigating to access essential services such as healthcare and education.

‘A journey of challenges’ is what Winnie describes her experience whenever she uses public transport. She writes about an awful experience where, while getting into a matatu, she almost fell as the vehicle started moving before she had a chance to sit down, which is an everyday occurrence in our public transport as little consideration is given to passengers with physical impairments to ensure they are safely seated before departure. Besides this experience, she mentions discrimination in public vehicles, which in turn imposes exclusion and discrimination and further imposes a financial burden on persons with disabilities as they have to seek an alternative means of transport to get to their destination. 

Joel Chege’s narrative highlighted the power of self-advocacy through a video blog, “Journey with Maina”, that started as a way to share his frustrations of the insurmountable obstacles when navigating public spaces and public transport as a crutch user. He explicitly states the condescending attitude and reactions he receives from people around him and from public transport operators where the vehicles would intentionally drive past him, ignoring his presence. He adds that there is a lack of supporting infrastructure, such as proper shelter at the bus stops to provide a favourable waiting area. His blog gained traction from the media, highlighting his story on national television, and this served as a turning point for public transport and the involvement of persons with disabilities in improving public transport systems. His essay provides an ideal situation of how advocacy can be instrumental in shaping policies and providing perspective into the difficulties persons with disabilities undergo while using public transport.

Persons with hearing impairments are not an exception when navigating public transport; they experience unique challenges. A simple journey can quickly become one filled with challenges due to the communication barrier between public transport operators and the lack of visual communication aids. 

Daniel Phillip Angila, a student from the United States International University Africa, narrates his experience moving through public transport. He tells a story of a day when he boarded a matatu, hoping to attend college for a lecture. Due to his inability to hear the stop announcement and the inability of the transport operator to communicate in sign language, he was taken past his destination and left stuck. He adds that the prevalent use of street slang ‘sheng’ among operators puts him in a situation where he cannot understand what the operators are saying. Therefore, they cannot acquire simple information such as fare prices or route changes. This is an experience shared by many deaf commuters, highlighting an urgent need to improve accessibility measures in public transport regarding visual communication aids and trained public transport operators on sign language. 

These are some of the lived experiences shared by the students, which aim to provide perspective into the issues persons with disabilities face daily while using public transport systems. Understanding these lived experiences is particularly important for policymakers, implementers, public transport operators, and commuters without disabilities in creating an enabling environment that eliminates barriers to full social and economic participation.