Access to transportation is important because it empowers older adults to maintain their independence. Transportation opportunities for older adults may take different forms, including driving, public transportation, ride-share service, or shuttle buses. This section of the report discusses public transportation access and perceived transportation barriers. Key findings include:

• In Indianapolis, approximately 76,000 people age 65 or older live too far away from an IndyGo stop to likely use transit. That represents nearly two thirds of people age 65 or older in Indianapolis.
• Less than one in five older adults in Central Indiana positively rates the ease with which they can use public transportation in their communities.
• In Indianapolis, one in three older adults lives in a neighborhood with minimal or no public transportation service.
• The 2023-2027 IndyGo Plan aims to improve IndyGo transportation services. This is likely to help older adults who live along pre-existing routes.
• Forty-two percent of adults age 65 and over who ride IndyGo public transit in Marion County would not be able to make their trip without IndyGo services.

Inadequate Public Transportation

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, “Transportation is essential to many areas of life such as employment, staying connected with family and friends, and access to healthcare.” ¹ However, many older adults do not have reliable transportation options beyond driving.

In Central Indiana, older adults find travel by car much more accessible than walking or public transportation. Four out of five older adults report that the ease of car travel is good or excellent in their communities, while only 56 percent say the same about walking, and 18 percent about public transportation.²  Additionally, 42 percent of older adults said that safe and affordable transportation is not available in Central Indiana.³

This is particularly important for households without a vehicle, and the 2021 five-year American Community Survey estimates that one in 10 households with a household member older than age 65 has no vehicle. Furthermore, access to vehicles varies by housing tenure. One third of renter householders age 65 and older have no vehicle, compared to only 5 percent of homeowners.

Public Transportation Use by Older Adults

Indianapolis has a substantial public transportation system and in 2019, its fixed-route ridership was 9,244,8551.⁴ Unfortunately, since then, largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ridership has starkly declined, outlined later in the chapter. Analysis of the 2022 IndyGo on-board survey data shows that close to 35 percent of bus riders are adults age 50 and older, and nearly 10 percent are age 65 and older.⁵ For adults age 65 and over, while their home was the most common origin or destination, social/religious/personal trips were next most common for origins or destinations at just over 20 percent of trips. However, for adults age 50-64, work was much more common as an origin and destination, with 27 percent beginning their weekday trips from work as opposed to 17 percent of those age 65 and over. IndyGo services were especially critical for adults age 65 and over to reach their destinations, with 42 percent of riders saying they would not be able to make their trip if IndyGo was not available as a service.

Public transportation is often only easily accessible to those who live near a public transportation service. Unfortunately, while some older adults live in neighborhoods with good public transportation service, most do not. Approximately 76,426 adults age 65 and over in Indianapolis live farther away from bus stops

A transit service density score (shown in the map below) is another way of quantifying transit service available to a neighborhood. It is calculated as weekly revenue miles per square mile and ranges from zero (no transportation services) to over 1,000 (high transportation service).⁶  A greater number of older adults tend to live where transit density is the lowest.

There are fewer adults age 65+ living in the urban center

Like every transit agency in the country, IndyGo experienced a 32 percent decline in ridership between February 2020 and February 2023, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.⁸ This drop in ridership negatively impacted IndyGo’s revenue, leading to a reduction in service frequency.

Additionally, the shortage of bus drivers has been a continual challenge, with IndyGo being around 100 drivers short of its operating goal for most of 2022.⁹ Published October 11, 2022. Accessed October 28, 2022. The reduction in service frequency impacts older adults reliant on public transportation, causing longer travel times and limiting accessibility to complete multiple tasks in a single trip.

IndyGo ridership has fallen sharply during the pandemic, but is beginning to rise again in recent months in 2023.

Ride app services made up over 40 percent of 2-1-1 transportation calls from adults age 60 and older within Central Indiana.

Community Needs

Central Indiana households having trouble acquiring transportation have the option of dialing 2-1-1 to connect with needed services. From September 2020 to September 2023, there were 1,783 calls to 2-1-1 from adults age 60+ requesting some form of transportation assistance.¹⁰ However, important to note is that most callers do not disclose their age. For example, 92 percent of callers during this period did not disclose their age, more so even than 2019.¹¹ In general, ride app services made up the bulk of calls, at 42 percent. Calls from older adults for ride app services dropped drastically in 2023, to only three percent of all transportation related 2-1-1 calls.

Community Perspective

According to focus group participants across Central Indiana, transportation is important for maintaining independence.¹²  Those who can access transit enjoy the activities it allows them to do, while those who do not have access feel their independence was curtailed. Across the Central Indiana region, participants report utilizing various means of transport. Some drive themselves or are driven by others, some utilize rideshare or shuttle bus programs, some who live in Indianapolis ride public transportation, and others walk. The type of transportation used and the frequency with which it is used depends on affordability, accessibility, and a variety of other factors. One participant drives himself and other older adults out to eat, while another who owns her own vehicle found that paying for its ongoing maintenance problems was challenging and stressful. As a part of the aging process, driving at night is no longer safe for some and the lack of accessible parking is a deterrent for others when driving to locations they frequented in the past. The roundabouts in Carmel were mentioned as confusing and difficult to navigate by one participant. Other older adults relied on family or friends to drive them, which is helpful but does not always allow these older adults to be as independent as they wish.

While rideshare programs permit focus group participants to go anywhere they wish, these programs are expensive, rely on technology that some do not know how to use, and are viewed as potentially unsafe by others. Shuttle bus programs, such as those through medical providers, senior centers, CICOA Aging and In-Home Solutions (CICOA), and IndyGo’s Open Door program, are options that are affordable to many participants and are useful for going to medical appointments and sometimes grocery shopping. A few participants indicated that the nominal fees charged for some of these services are not within financial reach for them, and hoped for more affordable, free options. Most of the services mentioned by older adults do not operate outside Marion County, making it difficult for older adults who must travel to the suburbs for medical, personal, or social reasons. Those transit options that cross county lines often require reservations in advance. Depending on where they lived, participants had different opinions on how accessible public transportation was. Some find it convenient, while others had difficulty accessing it. One participant mentioned how much she enjoys the new transit center downtown, while another one noted that it is difficult to navigate the stairs on the bus. Walking is also enjoyed by some as exercise or transportation; however, poor weather can make this challenging, particularly as ice and lack of snow clearance make sidewalks, bus stops, and curbs dangerous to navigate.

Transfer points between door-to-door services are located near the borders between counties.

Locations where riders can transfer from one door-to-door service to another.

Source: Central Indiana Regional Transit Authority

Filling the Gap

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires public transportation providers to provide paratransit to eligible individuals.¹³ Paratransit is a publicly funded, low-cost ridesharing service available by request. IndyGo’s paratransit service, now called IndyGo Access, operates seven days a week throughout Marion County. According to IndyGo, eligibility is based, “...on the effect the disability has on the applicant’s functional ability to board, ride and disembark independently from a fully accessible local transit vehicle. The accessibility of the regular local transit service and the environmental and architectural barriers within the service area are also considered.”¹⁴ All eight Central Indiana counties have paratransit/door-to- door service, operated by either a public transportation authority or a senior services agency. Each of these programs provides transportation within the boundaries of their respective counties. Older adults who are dependent on these services but require inter-county transportation must transfer from one county service to another at one of 21 possible transfer points across Central Indiana.

IndyGo conducted an evaluation of its paratransit services in 2020 and found that one in five trips are made by individuals whose start or finish location has the following characteristics:

• is in the outlying parts of the county,
• is outside the ADA-required zone, and
• has an average trip distance of 5 miles.

This average trip distance is three miles longer than the average distance of peer paratransit agencies.¹⁵ This was evident when looking at expenditures per rider data from 2022 for each transit agency, where IndyGo Access had the greatest cost per rider compared to other urban demand transit services in Indiana and most other transit services throughout Indiana in general. This expenditure per rider also nearly doubled from 2021. These demand response services are often the costliest on a per-rider basis because of the greater number of miles traveled per rider but are essential for many older adults in Central Indiana.

There are several transit services within Central Indiana targeted toward older adults and those with limited mobility. CICOA’s Way2Go service provides scheduled rides within Marion County for a fee of $5.00 per ride. Medicaid may cover the cost of this ride service when the trip is to a medical appointment. CICOA also provides shuttle services from certain apartment complexes within Marion County to major destinations such as banks, grocery stores, and shopping centers. My Freedom is a voucher program available across the whole region that allows persons with disabilities to purchase up to 15 vouchers per month for $6.00 each and use them as payment in any of the door-to-door providers in Central Indiana. These services were typically described as affordable by focus group participants, but because service is usually restricted to within county boundaries, these services are rarely used for regional trips. Key informants mentioned the main downturn of these services not going outside of county boundaries was the restriction of participants being able to attend medical appointments.¹⁶ Similarly, IndyGo has minimal service outside Marion County. The public and nonprofit transportation services available to older adults in Central Indiana still leave a gap in navigating the region at large. However, efforts are currently underway throughout Indiana, such as through Health by Design, to improve connectivity and accessibility to transit services between different agencies Indianacat.org.¹⁷ To learn more about some of the factors that lead to gaps in transportation service for rural older adults, please read “Highlighting Equity” below.