Sustainable Transportation for Rural Communities

Popular perceptions of the rural United States evoke images of farms and ranches, wide open spaces, and, of course, pickup trucks and cars to drive around it all. Without vehicles, it would be hard to traverse rural terrain. By definition, rural areas are sparsely populated and require great distances to travel between home and important destinations.

Even though it is true that almost everyone in rural areas has a car to get around, 4 percent of those who live in rural parts of the United States do not. Another 19 percent of rural residents find themselves in a “car-deficit,” meaning they have fewer cars available than household drivers. That adds up to nearly 9 million rural residents who may not have a car available when they need one. Many of these households are in the most impoverished places in the country, too: Appalachia, the Deep South, and some Native American reservations in the western United States.

Rural residents who do not have sufficient access to a car often face other structural disadvantages associated with lower socioeconomic status, which all together compound inequities. They are more likely to have lower incomes and lower educational attainment. They are also more likely to be people of color.

The lack of access to a car contributes to fewer job opportunities, poorer health, lower quality health care, greater social isolation, and lower levels of overall well-being. Carless rural residents are twice as likely as carless urban residents to stay at home on any given day because they do not have a car available to them.

How do people in rural areas cope without having car? Asking for rides from friends and family, borrowing cars, and coordinating carpools for commutes are all common coping mechanisms.