A transportation system that provides mobility is accessible, integrated and efficient and offers flexibility of choices. Our extensive intermodal transportation system helps make Americans one of the most mobile populations in the world. However, there are groups in our society that face significant mobility challenges. While travel by single adults and adults without children does not vary by gender, travel by men and women with younger children is starkly different. In particular, working mothers make more trips and cover more miles than at any other time in the past three decades .
Household income appears to be the single most significant determinant of mobility.
People in low-income households have fewer travel options and a much smaller radius of access to goods and services than those in higher income households. The high cost of acquiring, registering, insuring and maintaining a vehicle places vehicle ownership out of range for many low-income households. Different mobility issues face the elderly because they typically drive less, live in more remote locations, and may require special services and facilities . Many of the poor elderly are single women, often minorities, who live alone. As our population ages, these issues will become more critical.