My mother always taught me that I was no less than a man, that I was deserving of all that life had to offer. All it took was a holiday for me to see the disparity between her words and our reality. Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, my mother, aunts, and grandmother would spend hours in the kitchen, working to prepare the meal and clean up afterwards. Meanwhile, my father, uncles, and grandfather would lounge on the couch or at the table, chatting or watching football.
My family was not explicitly patriarchal, and I was never forced to perform any traditionally feminine duties. But as I matured, I felt a sense of duty to help with the dishes and pitch in a recipe. I knew that families rely on one another, and I had to do my part, even if only to alleviate the burden on someone else.
As I research gender disparities in transportation access, I am reminded of the women in my family, laboring tirelessly in the kitchen so that everyone else could enjoy their holiday. Faced with a cocktail of conflicting societal and economic expectations, women face several unique barriers in day-to-day trips. Despite the lack of supportive physical and social infrastructure, they continue to make these trips for their families and for themselves.
Research demonstrates that women’s travel patterns differ significantly from those of men. Women take more daily trips on average than men and have more variation in destinations (Rosenbloom and Burns 1994). Such trips are more likely to be chained as well, with women making multiple trips in one journey outside of the house (Sarmiento 1998). The dual role many modern women have of both income earner and primary caregiver leads many trips to be made at off-peak hours to accommodate work and school schedules (Ng and Acker 2018). This also leads to more trips being made with children (NHTS 2001). These findings and more represent an overarching gender split in transportation.
For these reasons, one might expect women to overwhelmingly prefer cars as their transportation mode. The many hats worn by the average American mother require flexibility, something that is not easily offered by most active and public transportation systems in the country. The commonly used hub-and-spoke model of transit, for example, may not be accommodating for trip chaining across different parts of town. Transit runs less frequently, if at all, after typical working hours. Traveling with children also poses challenges: young children often cannot walk long distances, and it is common for transit agencies to not allow open strollers on vehicles. These are reasons why women would be expected to prefer the comfort, safety, and autonomy of driving, and in some cases this is true. Ng and Acker (2018) found that women are more likely to drive than men in certain wealthy countries. One must look no further than the “soccer mom” stereotype to understand that, in the US suburbs, many middle-class women spend much of their days inside a vehicle toting their children around town.
However, stereotypes do not tell the whole story. Women outnumber men in public transportation users in the US as well as in many other countries worldwide (Clark 2017, Ng and Acker 2018). One might explain this as resulting from the generally lower income of women, leading them to pick a more financially affordable option. It may also result from families with one car giving the patriarch primary access as the “breadwinner” or “head of household.” Despite facing many obstacles, women continue to take the trips they need on public transportation and other non-car modes. Transportation planners alone cannot solve the centuries-old social and economic structures that cause women to bear the brunt of household labor and to rely more on inexpensive modes. However, by improving the convenience and reliability of active and public transportation, they can enable women to live their lives and access opportunities more easily.
Many strategies can be utilized to improve transportation systems across several different modes, but I believe the most crucial target is the frequency of public transit service. Investing into frequent transit helps alleviate many of the specific challenges that women face based on their travel patterns. Frequency makes it quicker and more convenient to take multiple and chained trips, especially if the destinations require transfers across routes. And for mothers, as any parent knows, traveling with children can hinder one’s ability to arrive on time to their destination—with increased transit frequency, punctuality becomes less important for access.
The benefits of increasing frequency are not limited to women; frequency is a vital component of increasing ridership among all riders. Frequency is the number one priority cited by the National Association of City Transportation Officials in their guide for revitalizing city bus lines (2022). Transit consultant Jarret Walker considers frequency to be one of the essential components of the “recipe” for ridership (2024). Although the convenience of frequent transit are particularly helpful for the travel patterns of women, transit becomes more useful to everyone when they don’t have to wait long between rides. Men as well as women can benefit from the reduced air pollution, increased physical activity, and lower financial cost of reducing car use. Advocating for women’s equity does not necessarily come at the expense of men—when transit is held to a higher standard, we all thrive.
Many modern feminist initiatives rely on the idea of making women equal to men—raising women’s pay to that of their male counterparts, giving women the reproductive choice enjoyed by men, etc. This model of equity is valuable in many cases, but in others, I argue that it is necessary for men to be made equal to women. Cars and trucks generate one-fifth of all US emissions (Union of Concerned Scientists 2014). With climate change already wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world, planners have a moral mandate to promote less carbon-intensive modes. The key to a future that is both environmentally and socially sustainable is not to expand car use for women but to encourage all people to use transit. Doing so requires building transit that people actually want to use; this begins with frequency.
Women are already choosing sustainable modes of transportation. It is time for everyone else to step up, in City Hall and in the kitchen, to make women’s lives easier. Just like at Thanksgiving dinner, everyone benefits most when everyone does their part. We must come together to both fund and utilize our transit systems for the good of our planet and society.
Clark, Hugh M. (2017). “Passenger Demographics and Travel.” American Public Transit Association, https://www.apta.com/wp-content/uploads/Resources/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/APTA-Who-Rides-Public-Transportation-2017.pdf.
Ng, Wei-Shiuen; Acker, Ashley (2018). “Understanding urban travel behaviour by gender for efficient and equitable transport policies.” International Transport Forum Discussion Paper, No. 2018-01, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), International Transport Forum, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/eaf64f94-en
National Alliance of City Transportation Officials. (2022). “Move that bus! Tactics for transforming transit in two years.” https://nacto.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/MoveThatBus-FINAL.pdf.
National Household Travel Survey (2001), “National Household Travel Survey 2001”, United States Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration.
Rosenbloom, Sandra, and Elizabeth Burns (1994). “Why working women travel alone: implications for travel reduction programs.” Transportation Research Record, no. 1459, pp. 39-45, https://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/trr/1994/1459/1459-007.pdf.
Sarmiento, Sharon (1998, Jul 30). “Household, gender, and travel.” Women’s Travel Issues, pp. 36-52.
Union of Concerned Scientists (2014, Jul 18). “Car emissions and global warming.” Ucsusa.org, https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/car-emissions-global-warming.
Walker, Jarrett (2008). “The Transit Ridership Recipe.” Human Transit, Jarrett Walker and Associates, https://humantransit.org/basics/the-transit-ridership-recipe#ridershipcoveragetradeoff.
mobility, urbanity, ecology 