I talked with some of our riders today, and one in particular pointed out the fact that he uses our van service three times a week, and for medical treatments, and if he had to pay a service for this, it would be a big hardship on him.

So the fact that we are a totally free service, and we're able to do that because of the township support, the Lower Paxton township support, and the Dauphin County support that we get.

Others live by themselves, and they live out where they used to live with the spouse, and now they have no transportation.

They feel like they're prisoners in their homes.

You know, with just regular buses, they've got to get to where the bus stop is, and if it's a distance from their homes, it can be a real hardship on them.

Timing, getting to appointments on time, they can be waiting hours.

There's a few things that I think are key to point out when it comes to accessing public transportation in urban settings for older adults.

The first one is obviously mobility issues.

Even simple things like curbs and getting up and down off the curbs to access a bus, or if you're in a very urban setting like Philadelphia that has SEPTA runs under the ground, if escalators aren't working or elevators aren't working, being able to actually access the SEPTA station might be a problem.

If lifts aren't working, if you have an elevator on the bigger buses, that could also be an issue.

So mobility, definitely an issue.

In urban settings where you have a lot of fixed route buses which go on a loop and follow the same route every day, if you have to do a lot of transfers, it can be really confusing to navigate what the different transfers look like.

Also, technology.

There's been a lot of changes in technology, so utilizing tap-to-pay or anything like that might be difficult for an older adult to manage.

For any fixed route systems in Pennsylvania, older adults are able to access those free of charge.

So if you're over 65, all you need to do is reach out to your local public transit authority to set up your senior card, and then you can access public transportation.

There are also shared ride services that are available.

Those are the little shuttle-style buses that you see going around.

So those are also available to older adults at discounted fares.

So that is really dependent on what your scenario is.

All agencies operate differently and have different programs.

I did bring up Rabbit Transit, which operates in the Harrisburg area.

Their foundation actually put together a really cool program that allows older adults to actually get a physical shopping cart that you get at the grocery store so that they can do their full shopping without limitations.

So the shopping cart goes onto the lift just like you would for a wheelchair, and then it's secured in the back.

So they are able to get a whole week's worth of groceries instead of having to go out every two to three days to go pick up what they need.

I think a lot of agencies across the Commonwealth are doing innovative programs like that to make it more accessible, make it easier, and make it simple for older adults.