Roksana Amid
Age-Friendly Glen Cove is working to reconnect older residents with the region’s trains, buses, and modern transit tools through a new initiative supported by a major national grant. The organization was recently selected as one of only five communities in New York State to receive a 2025 AARP Community Challenge Flagship Award, funding a “quick action” project designed to run from late summer through December 15.
The award supports Glen Cove’s new Ready to Ride campaign, which focuses on helping residents—particularly older adults and people with disabilities—understand how local transportation systems function today and how to use them with confidence. For many longtime riders, the days of printed schedules and in-person station attendants are long gone, and digital tools like the MTA’s TrainTime app have become essential. That shift has created new barriers for anyone who may not be comfortable with technology.
AJ Kuhr, director of Age-Friendly Glen Cove, said the program aims to close that divide.
“Age-Friendly Glen Cove is thrilled to be selected as one of five communities in New York State to be awarded a 2025 AARP Community Challenge Grant Flagship Award,” Kuhr said. “I’m fairly confident we were the first community selected from Nassau County since 2018.”
Kuhr explained that AARP’s Community Challenge funds “quick action projects” intended to address immediate needs within roughly six months. In Glen Cove, they said, the need is evident.
“The community need that we recognize is that we have transportation systems, but maybe not a lot of information about how they work, how they connect up with one another,” Kuhr said. The campaign involves “reintroducing community members to those systems with an eye towards what about the design of those systems makes it difficult for some older adults and people with disabilities to use.”
The initiative walks residents through tools and processes that have become central to modern transit: using TrainTime, planning multi-step trips, navigating stations, and understanding updated ticketing systems. It also guides residents through applications for paratransit services such as Able-Ride and reduced-fare programs like OMNY.
Since August, Age-Friendly Glen Cove has hosted six transit workshops and eight experiential learning trips, bringing participants onto trains and buses to practice these skills in real time. These trips help residents understand transfers, ticketing, and general navigation with staff support.
Ann Marie Martinez, who assists with the workshops, said these hands-on experiences give seniors the confidence they need.
“It’s good for seniors to learn travel training, like how to take the train, how to take the bus, how to change trains in Jamaica,” she said. “You learn.”
The campaign also incorporates accessibility audits, where participants assess how well local transit infrastructure accommodates older adults and people with disabilities, identifying areas where improvements may be needed.
For many, the trainings are about regaining independence. Liza Craig, retired director of the Adult Day Program at the Glen Cove Senior Center, said the program helps break down feelings of isolation.
“You learn how to buy tickets, because the ticket process keeps changing,” Craig said. “But mostly what we want people to know is that they don’t have to be isolated.”
Once participants feel comfortable with transit again, Craig said the benefits are immediate. “It’s really very easy to take the train and get into the city lickety-split,” she said. “You don’t have to pay congestion pricing. You don’t have to park the car. It’s really very nice.”
With Ready to Ride underway, Age-Friendly Glen Cove hopes to make transportation not a barrier, but a bridge—connecting older residents to opportunities, community, and confidence.
