The general narrative of young adults supports that they’re moving into urbanized areas and sport a preference or, at least, interest in, car-free transportation options.
While this is true on a broad scale and when compared to older generations, a new survey from Montana State University examines a subset typically ignored: younger people living in small cities and rural areas.
The survey, based on responses from 2,500 people living in Montana, Minnesota, Washington State, and Wisconsin, found that 87 percent of young people in rural areas prefer to commute by driving.
As Wired’s Aarian Marshall notes, there’s a classic “chicken and egg” problem with what options are available and how rural land use is allotted:
…requent and efficient transit systems are difficult to run in well-spaced rural America, especially with so few riders to fill up fare boxes. The current funding picture does not help: Federal, state, and local operating dollars for rural transit dropped 9 percent between 2013 and 2014.
“We are a reflection of our infrastructure,” says MSU research scientist Natalie Villwock-Wiette, who worked on the survey.
Without any reliable transit systems in place, it’s simply not possible to expect rural millennials to establish any preference. While on-demand services might prove cheaper for cities to implement, incomes play a major role. The study found that respondents were more likely to earn less than $20,000 per year, suggesting the technology- and smartphone-driven solutions would not be accessible as a regular option. However, as Marshall explains, the surveyed millennials identified an interest in technology at a rate higher than even their urban counterparts.