TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Research Results Digest 373: A Toolkit for Reporting Rural and Specialized Transit Data—Making Transit Count presents the results of an analysis of automated transit data collection and analysis procedures in state department of transportation transit units. Read More
Rural transit
Experts: Public needs to know transportation options for rural elderly
COLLEGE STATION – The question of when to stop driving is often a concern for older individuals and their families. They may disagree about whether someone can drive safely and if an older person may fear losing independence or become a burden to family and friends, according to researchers.
“Transportation issues can be compounded in rural areas where it can be 25 miles to the nearest grocery store and driving may be the only transportation option,” said Alicia Israel, a graduate student in agricultural economics at Texas A&M University. “Rural residents who do not drive face a higher risk of isolation.”
Distance, Dispersion and Poverty Make Difficult Choices for Public Transit
The Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas is located in the very southernmost region of the continental U.S. This area is composed of three counties with 3,643 square miles which contains a population of over 1.2 million inhabitants.1 This land area is larger in square miles than two states (DE and RI), and has a population larger than eight states (WY, VT, ND, AK, SD, DE, MT, RI). If the distances weren’t enough of a problem for transit providers, there is the dispersion of the population over those 3,600 square miles. Dispersion occurs as a result of small, very poor housing communities called colonias. Read More