How Detroit’s transportation gaps fuel loneliness

Regina Lawson likes to keep it moving. The 74-year-old Detroiter will volunteer just about anywhere she has a chance to interact with people — a list that includes but is not limited to the Detroit Jazz Festival, sports events at Huntington Place, the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, the NFL draft and the Detroit Grand Prix.

For Lawson, meeting strangers is the easy part. The difficulty is getting from her home to those volunteer gigs. She’s among the 34% of Detroiters who don’t drive , leaving her to rely on the city’s spotty public transit system . She has the basics covered — the senior center where she lives offers shuttles to doctor’s appointments.

But the basics don’t amount to a full life for Lawson, a social butterfly whose voicemail greeting wishes callers not just a good day but an exciting evening.

“We don’t have a problem with medical transportation,” she said. “It’s ‘socialization transportation’ that’s an issue.”

Public transit in Detroit is increasingly understood as an economic problem: Effective transit systems can help people get to work more affordably and can attract new people to a city.

But transit is also a social lifeline to people like Lawson. When transit gaps lead to gaps in social connection, they become a public health problem, fueling what the U.S. surgeon general calls an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.”

One 2017 study found a lack of social relationships and sense of belonging is more deadly than smoking less than 15 cigarettes a day and is substantially more dangerous than obesity, air pollution, physical inactivity and consuming more than six alcoholic drinks a day.

In the absence of high-quality public transit, “people will make sure the essential stuff gets done, but they might not do the things that make life worth living,” said Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United, a Detroit-based nonprofit.

The intersection of loneliness and transit

Social isolation was already on the rise in the U.S. by the late 2010s. It was then exacerbated by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and hasn’t abated. Social isolation among adults has remained elevated in the three years since the pandemic started, according to a national poll published by the University of Michigan last fall.

Transit advocates have long known about the link between transit and loneliness. A 2004 study found that about one-third of Black, Latinx and Asian seniors in the U.S. didn’t leave their homes on any given day , though they were more likely to step out if they had access to public transit. (White seniors were far more likely to leave their homes, a trend the study’s authors linked to economic inequities.)

Researchers came to similar conclusions in 2018, when a nationally representative poll found that non-drivers — specifically both younger adults with disabilities and older adults — felt overwhelmingly trapped and frustrated by their lack of transportation . Without the means to drive, younger adults with disabilities felt isolated (55%) and trapped (54%).

Those themes came through when Transit Riders United held a focus group on transit and disability , also in 2018.

“I really only leave the house to go to work so I never get to meet new people and I have very few social interactions,” one participant told researchers, adding: “I often find myself sitting at home and depressed and I truly believe a more active lifestyle would improve my mood and attitude about life.”

DDOT’s new paratransit booking schedule

• Starts in the second half of 2024
• Request same-day rides Monday-Saturday, 5 a.m.-7 p.m.
• No Sunday or holiday service
• Available to people with “functional inability to independently board, ride, and/or disembark from an accessible fixed route bus”
• Fill an application and mail it — along with a Professional Verification Form and a copy of valid identification — to the Detroit Department of Transportation Special Fares Division: 100 Mack Ave., Detroit, MI 48201-2416
• $2.50 per one-way fare

While those studies focused on older adults and people with disabilities, the challenges of being carless in Detroit are widespread. A 2017 poll found that about one-third of Detroiters lack access to a car , and the proportion is even higher among people who are Black, women or have low income. Of carless Detroiters, 4 in 10 had missed work, an appointment or an outing due to lack of transportation within the last month.

Isolation exacerbated by limited public transit “remains a problem for Detroiters, especially those who live in less populated neighborhoods,” Owens said in an email. “And much of Detroit is quite spread out — with such dependence on single-family homes.”

Anne Holmes Davis says this is a serious public health risk. Holmes Davis is the vice president of planning at the Detroit Area Agency on Aging.

“Connecting these individuals to family and friends, health care and other services has a positive impact on their health, longevity and quality of life.”

What’s next — and where to find rides

Regina Lawson has a variety of ways to get to a volunteering opportunity, none perfect. There are ride-hailing apps (too expensive to use regularly), rides from friends (not always available) and door-to-door paratransit service from the Detroit Department of Transportation (DDOT) (a bit pricey at $2.50 per ride and must be booked at least a day in advance).

She doesn’t take DDOT buses, even though it costs adults 65 or older just 50 cents to ride. A few years ago, a man demanded money from her while she was waiting at a bus stop. She was able to safely get away, but the experience left her shaken.

Lawson said she might try the bus system again if buses were more frequent, which would allow her to spend less time standing at the stop. She qualifies for and likes MetroLift, the DDOT’s paratransit service for people with mobility issues, and wishes that it would run more frequently, too.

Both those changes could be coming if the city follows through on promised transit improvements. Those include substantially shortened bus wait times and same-day booking for paratransit services, which is set to begin in the second half of this year, said Michael Staley, interim executive director of transit for the City of Detroit, in an email.

“Enhanced mobility has a direct impact on an individual’s connection to places of work, worship, leisure, and education,” Staley wrote. “Increased ‘connectivity’ to other places and people should, in theory, translate into less isolation.”

Owens said the paratransit change, which is set for this summer, would help with social planning in particular. Who hasn’t had to make a last-minute plan — or change of plans — to see a friend?

“It will finally allow for (relatively) last-minute making and changing of social plans that are so normal for most people, that people who depend on paratransit haven’t been able to do,” Owens said.

Outlier Media · How Detroit’s transportation gaps fuel loneliness