Shoring Up Transit for the Silver Tsunami (Leadership APTA)

As the fastest-growing population cohort, older adults are expected to become an increasing segment of transit riders for many years to come. By 2050, nearly a quarter of the country’s population will be over the age of 65. This raises important questions about how older adults will use transit services and what steps agencies can take to accommodate their unique needs beyond default to paratransit services.

Designing our transit systems to be age-friendly and helping make them more easily navigable for older riders will be key to boosting ridership among this group, enhancing their mobility, and improving their quality of life and independence. Increased ridership among older adults within our fixed route systems can also help reduce the demand for costly ADA paratransit services, support economic strategies by retaining aging residents in our communities, enhance access to health care and other essential services, and establish public transit as a valuable community resource for people of all ages.

This capstone project aims to embrace this demographic shift by identifying best practices and innovations in human-centric, simplistic transit design and community education that will make transit services more inclusive and welcoming for older riders.

Project Team:

• Grant Sparks, Coordinator, (VA Dept. Rail and Public Transportation)
• Anna Lan, Coordinator, (CapMetro)
• Sergio Callen (Atkins)
• Julius Smith (DART)
• Zach Hernandez (AlphaVu)
• Shangeeta Snape (Arcadis)