Walking a mile and a half with your arms full of groceries is a difficult or impossible proposition for an elderly woman or a mother carrying a child in tow, and the crisis we're dealing with is poverty, so, no a cab or a $6,000/yr. parking spot plus $20 parking at the store isn't feasible. And don't forget the neighborhoods that someone is walking through!
So how does this happen? It's a vicious cycle, with disrespect for other people's property at the core. People steal from store shelves, they take $400 carts home with them, and the stores get slammed by lawsuits if they carefully watch 13-year-old black kids hanging out by the pharmacy isle, and someone pulls a gun on a cashier about six times a day, and forget about defending your property, or prosecuting any perps you catch. Next thing you know, grocery chains decide that they just can't make a profit under those conditions.
So, the people who live in food deserts start subsisting mainly on convenience-store food and fast food,. THat's where Comrade Sebelius comes in. Rather than crack down on crime, the left attacks the store owners who don't want to move to Washington Heights, or the Bronx, or Anacostia. To be fair, more constructive approaches have been used. IIRC, San Francisco ran a program giving welfare recipients shopping carts, so they'd quit stealing the stores'.
My grandparents always walked or took public transportation, even though they could have well afforded a car. My grandmother had one of those wire carts that you pull behind you, like you see bag women using sometimes. They rented out their garage.
While that is all true, in my rural area, the gas stations in the nearest town (8 miles) have convenience stores that compete with grocery stores by having low prices for bread ($1.00/loaf), milk-in-a-bag, .38/lb potatoes, onions and bananas.. Their fried chicken is better and cheaper than the same offered at the Walmart deli. Lettuce, carrots, etc are about the same as the employee-owned store. Less-than-perfect apples are about the same per pound as Walmart. And that is their _profit_ center!
Existing businesses could easily provide the elements of a good diet w/o subsidizing grocery chains. Although, I thought I had read that Kroger was already being given subsidies to fill this *gap*.
Grants were offered years ago for transport in rural areas. I know someone who became wealthy utilizing these programs. Rides within towns are reasonable, the elderly and disabled are subsidized with lower fares, and the difference is made up by charging rural residents $1.75/mile. That is expensive, but for someone in need of emergency transport, at least it is available. Meanwhile, the retired often have a sideline of driving the local Amish and elderly, but that is strictly an off-the-books operation. Also, some Christian women take a few elderly or disabled under their wing and make themselves available for doctor appointments and shopping, et al. They do this gratis or for a few dollars towards gas, as a personal charity service.