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 of the St. Croix River Valley counties were at or below their respective 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, lack of a vehicle would make it much harder for seniors without a vehicle to get to jobs, health care services, or volunteer activities.
The proportion of senior households without a vehicle has been flat (Pierce County) or falling (Wisconsin, St. Croix, Polk, and Burnett Counties) for most of the period 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.
The state of Minnesota has seen a slow and fairly 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.