White House Conference On Aging

Mobility Options that Will Enable Freedom, Opportunity and Independence for Older Adults: A Vision of our Transportation Future

A Grand Vision

By William Millar

What is my vision of our transportation future? Fundamentally, our transportation network will need to serve and support a growing society and a growing economy, with older adults having mobility options that enable them the freedom and opportunity to be active in the workforce and in community life as they choose.

It is a vision of choices available through an interconnected transportation system that is affordable, easy to use and easily understood by both community residents and travelers. Roads connect to rail stations; trains connect to airports; and airports connect to bus lines. Information services are available and trip planning is made simple and more personal. It is convenient for older adults to take the train to the airport, and the personal automobile is not necessarily the centerpiece of all trips.

Communities are designed, transportation facilities are built, and transportation services are provided in ways that eliminate barriers and assure that the system is available to all. Communities have the necessary support systems to allow older adults who so choose the option to "age in place" within their own neighborhood and the family, friends and support networks they hold dear. Community design features which allow easy access to shopping, recreation, and centers for social activity make "aging in place" a viable and desirable choice.

The result is a system that enables older adults to travel, interact and contribute to society throughout their lifetimes. The time for this vision has come. In January, 2005 AARP released a Five-Year Mobility Action Agenda that identified a key goal: to increase the percentage of adults who have the mobility choices they need to remain independent as they age. The report noted that to live independently and age successfully, older Americans must be able to maintain a mobile lifestyle. The report also cited that when driving becomes more difficult, many Americans discover they have few mobility options.

The preferred vision is for high quality public transportation services to be available to the full spectrum of Americans, notably older adults, so that people may choose to use comfortable, reliable and convenient services. These include a variety of services that best suits the individual needs whether it is regular route service or door-to-door service run by volunteer drivers. Public transportation vehicles, stations and services are designed with the needs of older adults in mind, and are designed in concert with the ideas and suggestions of older adults. Boarding and alighting transit vehicles is a safe, simple walk.

Overview of Current Policies and Practices: Too Many Americans Simply Lack Adequate Transportation Options: The recent American Housing Survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau found that only 45% of American households have access to public transportation of any kind, and that these statistics are much worse in rural areas and other areas where the transit services that are provided lack the level of service and amenities that can attract choice riders.

The complexity and diversity of our future mobility needs makes it clear that solutions will require the interaction of all modes. A November, 2003 U.S. DOT report titled Safe Mobility for a Maturing Society: Challenges and Opportunities found that 50 years of suburbanization with choices of home sites dispersed across the community and beyond can leave those aging in place completely auto-dependent and stranded when they can no longer drive. The report stated that "The availability of activities and services within walking range and access to public transportation can become very important to older persons…."

The April 2004 report Aging Americans: Stranded without Options by the Surface Transportation Policy Project found that older non-drivers have a decreased ability to participate in the community. For example, they make on average 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor and 65 percent fewer trips for social and religious activities than older drivers make. This disparity of mobility leads to increased isolation of the individual and interferes with the role of that individual as a productive resource in our society.

A report released in October 2004 by the AARP Public Policy Institute titled The Impact of Federal Programs on Transportation for Older Adults recommended increased federal investment in public transportation to expand public transportation service in the suburbs and fringes of metropolitan areas to benefit the increasing numbers of older adults who live in those areas. The report cites the need for more transportation services that address the needs and travel patterns of older adults.

Mobility options overall could be improved were transportation decisionmakers to view all of the transportation modes together as an aggregate, fully integrated system that is planned and financed in a unified way. Too many times, decisionmakers concern is for a single mode of travel, and the balance and connectivity of the overall system is overlooked. This is a central theme of a bold new report by the Hudson Institute, 2010 and Beyond: A Vision of America's Transportation Future.

In addition to the need for more and better public transportation service, we must also confront the issue that many communities where older adults increasingly live - particularly those in suburban communities - are designed to accommodate travel via automobile and create serious challenges for those who otherwise could benefit from sustained mobility and independence through the use of public transportation and walking.

In many suburban communities, design features such as cul-de-sacs and unconnected streets make transit difficult to provide and use. Lack of connections between subdivisions forces buses to use busy arterials, which typically offer unappealing waiting environments for passengers. Many bus stops are not reachable by sidewalks, forcing passengers to walk and sometimes wait in the street. Also, many suburban destination points, shopping centers for example, are designed as isolated buildings surrounded by parking and lacking transit-friendly and pedestrian-friendly features.

The dangers of the pedestrian walk and how design has made too many of these trips dangerous is well documented in the Mean Streets 2004 study by the Surface Transportation Policy Project. The report concluded that America's streets are most inhospitable to our youngest and oldest citizens. Citing a growing number of pedestrian deaths, particularly in communities designed for the rapid flow of automobile traffic, the report called for slowing down traffic through traffic-calming and enforcement, and by promoting walking and public transportation choices.

Assessment of Trends, Challenges and Future Possibilities: Making More High-Quality Public Transportation Options Available: As with other segments of the population, older adults make their travel choices on the basis of smart and logical decisionmaking. If public transportation offers a convenient, comfortable, reliable and affordable transportation option the traveler is likely to take the good deal and use public transportation. In places where accessible, high quality public transportation services exist, a high percentage of the traveling public uses the service. Plain and simple! The challenge / opportunity is to make high quality public transportation options available to a greater portion of the population.

The 2002 U.S. DOT report Status of the Nations Highways, Bridges and Transit: Conditions and Performance estimated public transportation capital needs in excess of $20 billion annually. Separately, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) and Cambridge Systematics, Inc. have estimated annual transit capital needs considerably higher. In addition to mainstream, regular-route public transportation, specialized paratransit services are required for persons with disabilities, many of whom are older adults, who are not able to use the regular system. On June 13, 2005 the National Council on Disability released a report titled The Current State of Transportation for People with Disabilities in the United States. The report concluded: "The continued underfunding of public transportation…directly limits the mobility of large sections of the disability community who are unable to use a car, and this problem will not be fully addressed without a fundamental shift in funding priorities to support a comprehensive, accessible public transportation system." I strongly concur with the council's assessment that increased funding resources for public transportation is a major strategy for improving mobility options.

A second strategy is in coordinating human service transportation programs, the centerpiece of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's United-We-Ride initiative, and of the February 2004 White House Executive Order on Human Service Transportation Coordination. Greater efficiency, more resources and ridership growth are the result when existing public transportation services are used for the transportation needs of these programs. This integration can be accomplished through a "mobility manager," a regional mechanism wherein information is made available to tripmakers through a single point of contact on all relevant travel choices and their price-service characteristics. Mobility managers can make trip reservations directly or refer prospective users to a service provider for this purpose.

For older adults who are travelers, the emergence throughout the country of 511 Traveler Information Systems has enormous possibilities as a system to provide an awareness of the mobility services that already exist and to enable a safer, efficient and more universal transportation system.

Meeting the Needs of a Growing and Changing Marketplace: AARP made a profound statement when it placed "livable communities" together with retirement security and health care as the top three priorities of its strategic plan. Personal independence and fulfillment are indeed facilitated by the physical characteristics of a community, while poor community design will inhibit independence and social involvement. Public transportation is a central element of this strategy.

As the number of older Americans continues to grow, our transportation network must find new ways to meet the needs of citizens who are unable or who choose not to drive. Public transportation offers a vital solution for many older adults. For many Americans, transit is their lifeline. Aging Americans need to plan for their transportation security just as they plan for their financial security. Transit systems around the country need to recognize that have to adapt services to meet the growing needs of older adults. Many have implemented new services specifically tailored to the needs and lifestyles of older adults. Buses and light rail cars with low floors and low-platform boarding, streetcar systems and "trolley-bus" systems that provide circulator routes, web-based trip planning systems, and scheduled trips to accommodate the activities of older adults are a few of the ways to make transit service better.

APTA has collected these best practices, and is promoting their use as new ideas through its Easy Rider program to take all steps to make public transportation an accessible, viable and user-friendly option for older Americans, and to market public transportation in ways exclusively targeted to senior riders. With 70 million Americans to be age 65 or older by 2025, there is clearly a new opportunity / challenge for transit systems. In addressing this opportunity / challenge, we must view the need for mobility options as a national priority, to require investment and policy attention from the federal, state and local levels.