Due to personal circumstances I was not able to fully complete this project, but I was able to get a great start and find some important themes for future work on the subject. I decided to research the private transportation network for seniors in San Diego for a few reasons. First, I personally am interested in transportation in general, and am always curious to learn more about how various groups of people move throughout different locations. Second, while there is ample information on public transportation for seniors in San Diego, information on private transportation for seniors is more difficulty to find. Third, given the major gaps in San Diego's public transit network today, I know that a significant portion of seniors utilize private services, so I thought it would be interesting to learn more about how such systems work. Thus, my research question is: what are some of the successes and gaps within the current private transportation network for seniors in San Diego?
To answer this question, I first interviewed someone at SANDAG who specializes in senior transportation. He pointed me to SANDAG's Specialized Senior Transportation Strategic Plan (https://www.sandag.org/uploads/publicationid/publicationid_4645_27080.pdf) which proved to be very helpful and informative, particularly in pointing out the gaps within public transportation for seniors today. I then interviewed some program managers at assisted living facilities and senior centers in San Diego in order to get a sense of some of the lesser known systems seniors use. This was also super informative, and I learned that there is a quite a variety of services offered for seniors, some of which are very effective and some of which need significant improvements. In the future, it would be helpful to get a more comprehensive survey of both seniors and service providers to fully understand how people move throughout the region in order to understand how we can best make improvements.
To answer this question, I first interviewed someone at SANDAG who specializes in senior transportation. He pointed me to SANDAG's Specialized Senior Transportation Strategic Plan (https://www.sandag.org/uploads/publicationid/publicationid_4645_27080.pdf) which proved to be very helpful and informative, particularly in pointing out the gaps within public transportation for seniors today. I then interviewed some program managers at assisted living facilities and senior centers in San Diego in order to get a sense of some of the lesser known systems seniors use. This was also super informative, and I learned that there is a quite a variety of services offered for seniors, some of which are very effective and some of which need significant improvements. In the future, it would be helpful to get a more comprehensive survey of both seniors and service providers to fully understand how people move throughout the region in order to understand how we can best make improvements.