Planning for the Trips Traditional Models Overlook: Gender, Caregiving, and Everyday Accessibility

Abstract

Transportation planning has traditionally privileged the peak-period journey to paid employment. This orientation has shaped travel surveys, forecasting models, service schedules, investment appraisal, and accessibility metrics, even though much daily mobility consists of linked trips for childcare, education, food, health care, household maintenance, and support of dependent adults. Because women continue to perform a disproportionate share of unpaid care work, the analytical omission is gendered, but its consequences also affect children, older adults, people with disabilities, low-income households, and anyone traveling with dependents or carried goods. This article develops a Care-Centered Accessibility framework and applies it through a structured comparison of Delhi, Seattle, and Vienna. Delhi demonstrates how affordability initiatives can expand women’s bus use while safety, fragmented services, restrictive social norms, and poor pedestrian access continue to constrain effective accessibility. Seattle illustrates the mismatch between complex suburban activity chains and a network whose strongest service is oriented toward major centers and conventional commute periods, while recent equity and mobility programs provide partial corrective mechanisms. Vienna shows how gender mainstreaming, dense mixed-use development, public transport, and attention to public space can institutionalize care-sensitive planning, although uneven household labor and peripheral accessibility remain unresolved. Across the cases, the analysis finds that the relevant unit of planning is not an isolated trip but a time-constrained sequence of activities undertaken with bodily, financial, and relational responsibilities. The article proposes measures for temporal fit, chain reliability, accompaniment, safety, affordability, universal design, destination proximity, and participatory power. It concludes that transportation systems become equitable when they value the reproduction of everyday life as highly as the journey to formal employment.