Countywide Needs Assessment

Every four years, Snotrac administers a community survey to conduct a countywide transportation needs assessment to better understand the current transportation gaps, especially for people who rely on specialized transportation services such as paratransit and other door-to-door services. Our last needs assessment was published in March 2019, and was based on 524 survey responses.

Notable findings from the 2019 survey were:

92% of people who lack access to a driver's license or car do not commute. People lack access to driving for many reasons, but a major reason is disability due to age or physical condition. This indicates that providing greater transportation options, such as transit, door-to-door van service, or better walking & biking conditions, are essential for increasing economic mobility and quality of life.
People in areas poorly served by transit were 7x more likely to miss work in the last 30 days due to transportation issues.
People who are lack access to a driver's license or car are 2.3x less likely to take a non-commute-related trip in the last week.
30% of people in areas with poor transit service say they would like to ride transit if it were more available, compared with 24% of people in areas relatively well-served by transit. Meanwhile 66% of people in areas well-served by transit say that they don't use transit but would consider it, compared with 44% in poorly served areas.
While the general population indicated that service-related issues were the primary reasons for why they don't use transit (e.g., travel time, walking distance to bus stop, bus doesn't go to the desired destination, frequence of service, and transfers), people with disabilities reported that quality and cost were bigger factors by wide margins. The important factors for people with disabilities included difficulty getting on/off the bus, lack of seating and shelters at stops, safety at stops, and cost.