Friends and family of elders may one day get county compensation to drive their loved ones to medical appointments and shopping outings.

With the number of seniors in Napa County expected to double by 2030, county government is acting to propose new programs that can help improve the quality of life for those who have difficulty reading bus schedules or navigating cracked sidewalks.

Yet money for the program is dependent on the success of a proposed half-cent transportation sales tax expected to come before voters in June.

Although many senior transportation programs across the country rely on buses and scheduled pickups called paratransit, a new county survey by elder advocate groups shows that, at least in Napa, the vast majority of seniors either can't or don't use the programs.

Only 11 percent of respondents to the recent Napa Older Adult Survey said they use the bus and only 4 percent said they use paratransit.

One explanation, said Suzanne Shiff, executive director of In Home Supportive Services, is that the complexity of bus schedules are a turn off for elders and paratransit scheduling may not be convenient enough.

Besides, she said, with Napa County cities designed more for cars than pedestrians, ill-maintained or nonexistent sidewalks provide a treacherous walk to the bus for many seniors. What's more, a 2003 cost of living study for Napa, Vallejo and Fairfield said taxi scrip programs are rarely used because even many working age seniors can't afford them.

Instead, about 65 percent of Napa seniors in the adult survey said they drive themselves.

Federal statistics show that's a dangerous situation. Figures from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reveal that as people reach their eighties and beyond, they present more of a danger to themselves on the road than newly-licensed teens, even though seniors drive far fewer miles. A 2001 NHTSA report said drivers aged 85 and older are nine times as likely to die in a car crash than drivers aged 25-69, mostly because seniors are more fragile than younger drivers.

Elder advocates met with the Napa County Transportation Planning Agency in August and proposed creating a new program based on reimbursing volunteer drivers -- whether a cadre of trained volunteers or friends and family of seniors -- because twice as many seniors said they had friends or family drive them places than those who said they used public transportation. Advocates reason that with such a program in place, mobility would be more affordable to many seniors.

Mike Zdon, executive director of the NCTPA, said the cities in Arizona have similar programs.

"The value is you get a lot of transportation for less money," he said.

Deborah Brunner, NCTPA senior transportation planner, said between $280,000 and $333,000 per year would go toward senior mobility programs if the transportation sales tax measure wins approval from two-thirds of voters.

Another proposal is to designate vans to drive seniors to locations such as local shopping centers and Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Vallejo.

"None of this has been planned or detailed out, we're still talking in concept right now," Brunner said, adding the NCTPA would partner with elder advocates like the Napa-Solano Area Agency on Aging and the Volunteer Center of Napa Valley to figure out the best program to use. But the NCTPA could move quickly if the sales tax passes.

"It's not truly going to get hammered out until we know we have something to go on," Brunner said.