Largely because of limited transportation options, more than half of all non-drivers age 65 and older stay at home on a typical day. Compared with older drivers, older nondrivers in the U.S. make 15 percent fewer trips to the doctor, 59 percent fewer shopping trips and visits to restaurants, and 65 percent fewer trips for social, family, and religious activities. For many non-drivers, public transportation is the only alternative to asking for a ride for trips outside their immediate neighborhoods.
What does this mean for Wisconsin? Wisconsinites over the age of 65 will grow dramatically as the Baby Boomers join the ranks of the elderly. Wisconsin’s elderly population will expand by 633,000 by the year 2030. Senior citizens formed 13 percent of the state’s total population in the year 2000. Their proportion in the total will rise to 21 percent in 2030.
The population aged 85 and over is projected at 158,000 in 2030, an increase of 63,000—or nearly 66 percent—
over their 2000 tally of 95,000.
Without good transit options, Wisconsin will see hundreds of thousands of seniors stranded.