UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN River Falls

Transportation Indicators

Senior Households Without a Vehicle

 seniors-no-vehicles-2022

  • In both Minnesota and Wisconsin, slightly more than one-in-ten households in which the householder was 65 or older did not have a vehicle available to them.
  • All the St. Croix River Valley counties in the Wisconsin side were below the state average with respect to older householders without access to a vehicle.
  • Chisago and Washington Counties have considerably higher proportions of senior households without a vehicle than their Wisconsin counterparts (Burnett, Pierce, Polk, and St. Croix Counties).
  • Given the lack of public transportation in the St. Croix River Valley, the lack of a vehicle would make it much harder for seniors to get to jobs, health care services, or volunteer activities. 
     

seniors-no-vehicle-wi-2022

  • The proportion of senior households without a vehicle has been falling in Wisconsin (statewide) and in all counties in the Wisconsin side of the region since 2010.
  • The St. Croix River Valley counties tend to have lower percentages of their senior-households who don’t have a vehicle than the Wisconsin average.
     

seniors-no-vehicle-mn-2022

  • The state of Minnesota has seen a slow and consistent decline in the percentage of senior households without a vehicle.
  • While the percentage of senior households in Washington County without a vehicle fell from 2010 to 2017, the past two years have seen a sharp reversal of this trend.
  • The proportion of Chisago County’s senior households without a vehicle has exceeded the state average for most of the past decade, though the last three years have brought this metric back down to the Minnesota average.

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