Innovations in Aging Summit

Today I attended the Innovations in Aging Summit, held in downtown Colorado Springs. The main goals of the summit were to "start a community conversation on how to make Colorado Springs a remarkable place to age" and to "lay groundwork for building a desired blueprint for aging in our community."

I participated in the urban planning and transportation breakout group. We came up with several ideas on how to more effectively use the existing transportation here and restructure our community to make it more senior-friendly. 

Among the ideas we discussed, two really jumped out at me, including better use of technology (e.g., developing an on-line transportation request system) and integrating people in the "aging" community with others who have difficulty with transporation (e.g., people with physical or mental disabilities, under-employed individuals).

Participating in the breakout group helped me to realize the potential role of psychologists in revamping transportation, not only in this region, but in the country as a whole. Specifically, once people are educated about different transportation options, psychologists can help to facilitate behavior change (e.g., getting a community to decide to walk to the store rather than drive).