Senior Transportation in Maryland: Rides for Seniors (2026)

Senior transportation in Maryland isn't one program, it's several. When an older adult stops driving, the hard part isn't that rides don't exist; it's knowing which of Maryland's separate systems fits the trip in front of you. The state aging network offers rides through the Older Americans Act, reached through Maryland Access Point and your local Area Agency on Aging.1 Local public transit must offer paratransit to riders whose disability keeps them off the bus, Maryland Medicaid's nonemergency transportation benefit covers rides to medically necessary appointments for enrollees with no other way to get there, and a volunteer and private layer fills the gaps.2,3 Which door you use depends on who the rider is and where they're going.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• Why Maryland Has No Single Senior Transportation Program
• Start Here: Maryland Access Point and the Aging Network
• ADA Paratransit: MTA Mobility and Your Local Transit Agency
• Medical Trips: Maryland Medicaid, and Why Medicare Usually Won't
• Statewide, Senior-Center, and Volunteer Rides
• Which Maryland Senior Transportation Option Fits Which Trip
• How to Start: One Phone Call
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Why Maryland Has No Single Senior Transportation Program

Families go looking for "the Maryland senior ride program" and can't find it, because it isn't one thing. What Maryland has instead is a set of separate systems, each with its own rules, its own paperwork, and its own idea of who it's for. One is built around age, one around disability, one around who insures your parent's health care, and one around whoever in the community is willing to drive.

From the outside that looks like a maze. But it resolves into a simple question you can answer trip by trip: who is the rider, and where are they going? A ride to dialysis for someone on Maryland Medicaid runs through a different door than a ride to the grocery store for a 72-year-old in Baltimore County who just let their license lapse. The rest of this guide walks the Maryland menu one option at a time, then lines them up so you can match the option to the trip.

Start Here: Maryland Access Point and the Aging Network

Start with the aging network, because it's the widest door and the one most families don't know to use. In Maryland the entry point has a name: Maryland Access Point (MAP), the state's No Wrong Door Aging and Disability Resource Center. MAP is the single front door for older adults, people with disabilities, and caregivers who need to find and reach long-term services and supports, transportation among them. It is overseen by the Maryland Department of Aging and delivered primarily through the local Area Agencies on Aging, and you can reach it statewide at 1-844-627-5465 (1-844-MAP-LINK).1

Behind that front door sits the funding that makes rides for older adults a durable program rather than a favor. The Older Americans Act requires that a protected share of each area's funding go to a set of "access services," and transportation is named among them, right alongside information and assistance and case management. The protection isn't absolute: a state must waive it for an area whose Area Agency on Aging shows that the services already furnished there meet the need.4 Two features make this the first call for a Maryland family:

• There's no income test. Federal law bars denying an Older Americans Act service to an older adult because of their income or because they don't pay, and an Area Agency on Aging and its providers may not means test for a service for which voluntary contributions are accepted. Your parent may be invited to contribute, never required to, and savings or other assets can't be considered when they're asked. A state may separately choose income-based, sliding-scale cost sharing for some services, though never for someone at or below the federal poverty line.5
• The age bar is 60, not 65. The Act defines an "older individual" as someone 60 or older, so that's the threshold.6

What the ride actually looks like is local. MAP is delivered through your local Area Agency on Aging, and each one arranges the transportation that fits its community, which might be a dial-a-ride van, a senior-center shuttle, mileage reimbursement, or a volunteer driver. Because the program has a local name, the efficient move is to call MAP and ask what operates where your parent lives, rather than searching for a generic term.

ADA Paratransit: MTA Mobility and Your Local Transit Agency

This is the option families most often don't realize is a legal right. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a public transit agency that runs local fixed bus or rail routes must also provide complementary paratransit to people with disabilities in three federal groups: someone who can't board, ride, or get off an accessible vehicle without another person's help (other than a lift or boarding-device operator); someone who needs a wheelchair lift or other boarding device when no accessible vehicle is running on that route at the time they want to travel; and someone whose impairment-related condition keeps them from getting to a stop or from a stop to their destination. The service has to be comparable to the fixed-route system it shadows, it generally has to cover trips within three-fourths of a mile of a route during the same days and hours the buses run, and the rider's fare can't be more than twice the regular fare, while a personal care attendant riding along isn't charged at all. The agency can't cap the number of trips, keep a waiting list, or limit rides by trip purpose. Those standards can be modified for an agency granted relief for undue financial burden, and a paratransit system that was coordinating service for more than 40 fixed-route agencies when a 2015 federal law passed may keep its existing distance-based coordinated fare above the two-times cap, within limits.2

One carve-out matters here, and Maryland is where it bites. The complementary paratransit requirement does not apply to commuter bus, commuter rail, or intercity rail.2 MDOT MTA states that its paratransit service does not include MARC Train or Commuter Bus routes, so no application will produce a paratransit ride along them. Baltimore's everyday network is the opposite case: MTA's paratransit area is drawn around its Local bus routes and its Light Rail and Metro Subway stations.7 If the trip your parent needs is one they used to make on MARC, the answer is one of the other doors in this guide, not the railroad.

In the Baltimore region, that service has a name: MDOT MTA Mobility (also called MobilityLink), the Maryland Transit Administration's ADA complementary paratransit service. It is a shared-ride, door-to-door service for people who, because of a disability, are functionally unable to get to a bus stop, wait unassisted, or board or ride a bus or train by themselves, and it operates within three-quarters of a mile of any Local route in Baltimore City and in Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties, and within three-quarters of a mile of a Light Rail or Metro Subway station. Riders apply for eligibility and make reservations through the MTA Mobility office at 410-764-8181.7

Three things are worth knowing before you apply:

• Eligibility is about function, not age. Qualifying turns on whether a disability prevents fixed-route use, which the transit agency decides when your parent applies. Age alone doesn't qualify a rider, and being older doesn't disqualify one.
• It's tied to the bus map. If your parent lives well outside a transit agency's service area, as many rural Maryland residents do, paratransit may not reach them, and the aging-network, statewide, and volunteer options below matter more.
• A caregiver can ride along. On MTA Mobility the one-way fare is $2.20 for eligible riders and their guests, and a rider certified to travel with a personal care attendant has that attendant ride free. Federal rules also require the service to carry one other companion, and more if there's room and it won't deny a ride to an eligible rider; a family member or friend counts as a companion, paying the rider's fare, unless registered as the rider's attendant.7

Baltimore's MTA is the state's largest system, but it isn't the only one. Montgomery County, Prince George's County, and others run their own local transit systems, each with its own ADA paratransit service and application. If your parent lives outside the Baltimore area, ask your county's transit office or MAP for the local paratransit service by name.

Medical Trips: Maryland Medicaid, and Why Medicare Usually Won't

When the trip is to a medical appointment, the rules change, and the single most useful thing to know is which program insures your parent.

Maryland Medicaid covers medical rides, because the assurance of transportation is mandatory in Medicaid: a state must ensure both emergency and non-emergency medical transportation where necessary for a beneficiary to receive covered services.8 Maryland's nonemergency transportation benefit serves Medicaid enrollees without access to other means of transportation to get to medically necessary appointments, and it is run jurisdiction by jurisdiction. The Maryland Department of Health provides grants to local health departments, except in Montgomery County, where it has a separate interagency agreement, and the local health department screens requests to ensure the rider's eligibility and that transportation is necessary. That description comes from the department's 2019 Joint Chairmen's Report, which also described an NEMT broker pilot work group, so confirm the current arrangement when you call.3

In practice that means the phone number depends on where your parent lives. In Prince George's County, for example, the county health department provides non-emergency transportation to Medicaid-covered medical services for eligible residents who have no other means of getting to their appointments.3 If your parent is enrolled in a Maryland Medicaid HealthChoice managed care plan, ask the plan too whether it helps with rides. To find the right number, call your local health department's medical assistance transportation program (in Montgomery County, ask the county) or ask MAP.

By contrast, Original Medicare's transportation benefit is Part B ambulance coverage, and only in defined circumstances: Part B covers ground ambulance transportation when traveling in any other vehicle could endanger your health, and Medicare will only cover ambulance services to the nearest appropriate medical facility that's able to give the care your parent needs. In some cases Medicare may pay for a medically necessary, non-emergency ambulance trip, such as to and from a dialysis facility, if a doctor or other health care provider gives a written order saying it's medically necessary. Covered trips aren't free: after the Part B deductible, your parent pays 20% of the Medicare-approved amount. Scheduled, non-emergency ambulance trips that repeat (3 or more round trips in a 10-day period, or at least once a week for 3 weeks or more) may fall under a Medicare demonstration program: the ambulance company may ask Medicare for prior authorization before the fourth round trip in a 30-day period, and if that request isn't approved and your parent keeps getting the rides, Medicare will deny the claim and the ambulance company may bill your parent for all charges. Either your parent or the ambulance company may request prior authorization.9 If your parent has a Medicare Advantage plan rather than Original Medicare, check the plan: CMS lets a plan offer chronically ill enrollees transportation for non-medical needs, such as grocery shopping or banking, as a supplemental benefit, but it is plan-specific and not guaranteed.9

Statewide, Senior-Center, and Volunteer Rides

Underneath the funded programs is the layer that often does the everyday work of getting an older adult to a hair appointment, a place of worship, or the pharmacy.

• A statewide specialized transportation program. According to St. Mary's County, which describes the program, Maryland's Department of Transportation helps fund county transportation for older adults and people with disabilities through the Statewide Specialized Transportation Assistance Program (SSTAP), created for elderly and disabled Marylanders who live too far from public transit routes, with its funds apportioned to the counties and Baltimore City, so what it looks like on the ground depends on your county's transit system.
• Volunteer driver programs. Many Maryland communities run programs where screened volunteers drive older neighbors to appointments, shopping, and errands, often coordinated by a county Department of Aging or a senior center. St. Mary's County, for instance, describes a Senior Rides Program that uses volunteer drivers for seniors who lack other reliable transportation. Availability and cost vary widely by county, so ask MAP or your Area Agency on Aging what operates locally.
• Ride-share, concierge, and community shuttles. App-based ride services, phone-based concierge services built for people who don't use smartphones, and shuttles run by senior centers, retirement communities, or grocery and medical facilities can all fill in for spontaneous or routine trips. These are mostly private and paid out of pocket, but for a parent who can still transfer in and out of a car independently they can be the simplest option for an unplanned trip.

None of this layer is an entitlement, and it's the part that varies most from one Maryland county to the next, which is exactly why MAP, whose job is to know the local map, is the efficient place to ask.

Which Maryland Senior Transportation Option Fits Which Trip

The menu resolves into a matching problem. Line the options up against who the rider is, what the trip is for, and what it costs, and the right door usually picks itself.

Read it as a decision, not a ranking. A Medicaid member going to dialysis starts with the county's Medicaid transportation program. A 68-year-old in Anne Arundel County who just stopped driving and wants to keep getting to the grocery store and church starts with MAP and, if a disability keeps them off the bus, an MTA Mobility application. Most families end up using more than one, one for medical trips and another for everything else.

How to Start: One Phone Call

For everything except the Medicaid medical benefit, the same first call does the sorting. Reach Maryland Access Point at 1-844-627-5465, or nationally through the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116, the national entry point for finding the Area Agency on Aging that serves your parent's address.10 Look it up by the address where your parent lives, not where you live, because the agency is defined by their location.

When you reach MAP, name the actual trips: "My father is 74, lives in Baltimore County, no longer drives, and needs to get to a cardiologist twice a month and to the grocery store weekly." A specific request gets a specific answer: which local programs exist, whether he'd qualify for MTA Mobility, and what each one costs. If your parent is on Maryland Medicaid, also contact their local health department's transportation program or their HealthChoice plan for medical rides, since that benefit runs on a separate track.3

Learn More

Find personalized help arranging transportation for an older adult in Maryland who no longer drives at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.