Finding Child Care Is Hard. Finding Transit-Accessible Child Care Can Be Near-Impossible

First Five Nebraska, working with Child Care Aware® of America and the Alliance for Early Success, recently developed a dashboard that explores the child care and public transit landscape in metropolitan Nebraska. Their findings were staggering.

In Lincoln and Greater Omaha, only about 45% of all licensed child care providers serving children under age 6 are located within a 10-minute walk of the nearest public transit stop. For parents with very young children, those 10 minutes can be insurmountable, especially given the challenges of navigating public transportation systems and increasing extremes of weather.

And, unfortunately, Nebraskans aren’t alone here.