2022
Women's Mobility Of Care in NYC
Mobility Beyond Transportation



With Claudia Kohn Ávila and Daniela Perleche Ugas
Instructors:  Leah Meisterlin, Daniel Froehlich, and Alanna Browdy        




Tools: ArcGIS Pro, QGIS,  Adobe Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign), Canva

Techniques: Spatial Join, Network Analysis, Service Area Modelling, Multi-criteria Accessibility Mapping

Keywords: Gender & Transport, Mobility Justice, GIS, Urban Equity, NYC Planning                            


Urban transportation systems are often designed around the idea of a “typical commuter”—a full-time worker making two predictable trips a day between home and office. But for many women, especially those with caregiving responsibilities, mobility doesn’t follow this linear pattern. Instead, it’s a complex web of short, multi-stop, often unpaid trips that sustain families and communities—what researchers call “mobility of care.”

This project investigates how caregiving shapes women’s everyday movement across New York City and how public transit systems may fail to support these essential, yet often invisible, mobility patterns.

Research Questions:

What is the accessibility of women with the greatest challenges regarding mobility in the city?

Where are the women who face the greatest challenges living in the city? What is the level of access of women with the greatest challenges regarding mobility?

Methodology:
Using a mix of spatial and demographic datasets, we conducted a GIS-based analysis focusing on:

  • Care Infrastructure Mapping: Identified the spatial distribution of key caregiving destinations across NYC (childcare centers, health clinics, grocery stores) using NYC Open Data and geocoded services.

  • Demographic Overlay: Mapped neighborhoods with high concentrations of female-headed households and primary caregivers, using Census ACS and PLUTO data.

  • Transit Accessibility Analysis: Performed a network-based service area analysis using ArcGIS Network Analyst to calculate the time it takes to reach care destinations via public transit during off-peak hours.

  • Equity Insights: Highlighted zones where caregiving mobility needs are underserved, particularly in outer boroughs with longer trip chaining and limited subway coverage.


Key Findings:

  • Transit deserts in outer boroughs disproportionately impact women in caregiving roles, particularly in the Bronx and southeast Queens.

  • Access to multiple caregiving destinations within a single trip (trip chaining) is poorly supported by radial transit design.

  • Women in low-income and immigrant communities face the double burden of time poverty and poor transit access, limiting not just mobility, but access to opportunity.

Reflection:

This project sheds light on how gender-blind planning reproduces inequities in everyday life. It offers a data-informed case for mobility justice, advocating for transportation systems that recognize the diversity of travel patterns, especially those shaped by unpaid care work.

As cities reckon with questions of equity, this project underscores the need to center care work in how we think about access, infrastructure, and justice. Women’s mobility is not a niche topic, it is foundational to how cities function. If transit systems don’t support caregiving, they don’t support society.