12-10-2016, 08:07 PM
(12-10-2016, 01:29 PM)panamaniac Wrote: There must be studies out there that show how this plays out, but those losing driver's licences for health reasons are relatively few and by the time it happens (or they decide to stop driving for whatever reason), the elderly are simply not going out as much, whatever the means of transportation. This could change in coming years as the boomers hit their "golden years", I suppose. It seems to me, however, that students and daily commuters are the only real drivers of the numbers, although I will defer to those who may know more.
This Profile of seniors' transportation habits from Stats Can suggests you're exactly right:
Quote:Seniors do not use public transit more often as their main form of transportation as they get older. Nor does occasional use increase with age. Rather, the proportion who had used public transit at least once in the previous month declined with increasing age (Table 3). For example, 25% of women aged 55 to 64 had used public transit at least once in the previous month, compared with 18% of women aged 85 and over.
And you're right that losing a license for health reasons is rare. I knew that in an anecdotal sense, but there are numbers here, and even among seniors with dementia or poor eyesight, most still have driver's licenses. That's disturbing, but there are the numbers, anyway.
I think the most important part in there is this: "The relatively infrequent use of public transit compared with other means of transportation is possibly also attributable to the fact that seniors, like the rest of the population, tend to live in low residential density neighbourhoods."
The goal here in Waterloo Region is to change that.