From Walk-A-Thons to Congressional Hearings: Rural Transportation Services Come of Age
Public Deposited- Creator
-
Garber, Connie
- Other Affiliation: President, Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA); Transportation Director, York County (Maine) Community Action Corporation
- Abstract
- In the late 1960s, in rural York County, Maine, one of the first walk-a-thons was organized with the theme: The children will walk so the elders may ride. This event raised $33,000, and the first van was purchased to provide transportation to some of York County's senior citizens. This scene, with variations on the theme, was repeated in the 1970s in countless other communities across the country, predominantly focusing on the need of elders to access medical care, shopping, and hot meal programs. The Councils on Aging and Senior Centers, serving as advocates for the elderly, set a high priority on access to services. They understood that without a means to move people from point A to point B, the best services were of no use to these potential consumers. Following the example set by advocates for senior citizens, groups such as Associations for Retarded Citizens, United Cerebral Palsy, and the Red Cross became involved with the provision of local transportation for their client groups. On the federal level, the growth of transportation services was fueled by the expanding array of programs serving health and human service needs. The Health Care Finance Administration (whose programs include Medicaid), Head Start, the Administration on Aging, and many other bureaus in the federal government became involved directly or peripherally in the funding of transportation for specific segments of the population. In 1978, the Urban Mass Transportation Act took on a new dimension when Section 18 was added to the original Act. Section 18 provided funding for capital and operating costs of non-urbanized public transportation. The establishment of rural transportation funding had been preceded by the Section 147 demonstration projects. These projects had so clearly proven the need for additional rural transportation resources that no full-scale evaluation was needed to substantiate their success. Why was there such a need? What were the circumstances in this country that precipitated the growth of transportation services, not only in the large urban areas, but in smaller cities and rural regions? We have only to look at how people lived, their means of livelihood, the family structure, the advancements in health care, and the regionalization of services to answer these questions.
- Date of publication
- 1991
- DOI
- Resource type
- Article
- Rights statement
- In Copyright
- Journal title
- Carolina Planning Journal
- Journal volume
- 17
- Journal issue
- 1
- Page start
- 67
- Page end
- 70
- Language
- English
- Digital collection
- Carolina Planning Journal
Relations
- Parents:
- In Collection:
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