Linking Transportation, Food Access and Health

To put it simply, inner city folks in low-income areas have a much tougher time reaching stores because of a lack of integration between land use, transportation and housing policy, as well as issues like redlining in the supermarket industry.

Carla Kaiser, senior manager of Community Partnerships at the hunger organization City Harvest has been working on food access in low-income communities for about six years. ”The barriers to healthy food are not just about price,” she says. “A common theme is transportation. Since healthy, affordable food is not commonly available in every community, people need to travel outside of their neighborhood just to get basic food to feed their family. For many, this means two buses and a taxi ride back with groceries. Just getting to the food people want is costly in terms of time and money.”

Transit and planning solutions can go a long way. Transit oriented development centers future growth around public transportation, and zoning and building incentives can be codified to encourage food retail. Also, establishing a high frequency of bus routes or shuttles that go directly from community centers to grocery stores will encourage shoppers and greatly ease access for the elderly and car-less. City transit and public health planners should work together to make sure urban communities with low rates of car ownership can access major food stores and other health-related venues like hospitals.