Bridging the gap between mobility haves and have-nots

Abstract

Grace is a single mom with two kids living in Koreatown in Los Angeles. High housing costs have put car ownership out of reach for Grace, so she regularly suffers through a long, complicated morning and afternoon travel grind. Each weekday, she rises at 5:30 a.m. to dress and feed her children and walk them four blocks to her cousin Lydia’s apartment; Lydia then walks Grace’s daughter to daycare and her son to elementary school while Grace makes a seventy-five-minute, two-bus trek from Koreatown to her job as a teacher’s aide in Westchester. The trip home in the afternoon is just as lengthy and complex, and Grace struggles to get dinner on the table for her children by 7:00 p.m. each evening.