WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

This overlay information can help planners focus dollars on filling in the gaps or rerouting transit to better serve everyone in the community, including the 31 percent who don't drive, according to WisDOT's analysis.

Anna Zivarts, author of When Driving is Not an Option, says a simple way to value the experience of nondrivers is to put yourself in someone else's shoes, like a person trying to cross an eight-lane arterial, while negotiating mud puddles and overgrown bushes along the edge of a road with no sidewalks.

Or, try pledging to ditch your car and rely only on public transit for a few days.

 

WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

Anna Zivarts' book -- When Driving is Not an Option  -- offers a useful tool. The OpenSidewalks project at the University of Washington's Taskar Center for Accessible Technology uses open data sources, verified by on-the-ground community audits, to map sidewalk networks.

It goes beyond a typical Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) assessment, empowering planners and others with information about sidewalk slope, minimal effective width, and lighting.

Zivarts details how in 2020, disability advocates convinced Wisconsin's Department of Transportation (WisDOT) to form a nondriver advisory committee.

"When you overlay where the transit is, where the routes are, and where the stops are with where people who are nondrivers actually live, those two things don't overlap," committee co-chair Tamara Jackson says in the book.

"This forces transportation planners to consider whether people are unable to use transit because 'it doesn't go where they need to go, or they can't get to it.'"

WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

Tanisha Sepúlveda is a program coordinator at Empower Movement WA, a collective that advocates for disability justice, transportation equity, and community access.

A power wheelchair user who lives in Seattle, she often relies on bus and light rail.

The sidewalks near her apartment and the closest bus stop have sections heaved up by tree roots, filled with loose gravel, and lacking curb ramp.

So, she rolls in the street.

"I'll have people yell at me and tell me to get out of the road, sometimes with profanity," Sepúlveda says in the book When Driving is Not an Option.

"I understand it does not look safe to them, and it is not safe, but it is even less safe for me to be on the sidewalks."

INCLUSION ALWAYS IS A BEAUTIFUL THING

WHEN DESIGNERS STOP BEING ABLEIST,

IT CAN BE AESTHETICALLY BREATHTAKING

“Wheelchair ramps are ugly and institutional,” said the ableist architect too lazy to design an elegant access ramp.

“Wheelchair ramps are inelegant and hurt business,” said the foolish business owner shunning 25% of the population that has a disability.

This wheelchair ramp is chic, stylish, landscaped, lit & practical for accessing multiple levels of the 1930s Park Central Hotel in the heart of Ocean Drive on Miami Beach.

Ramps are beautiful & welcoming.

WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

There have been small successes in funding transit, sidewalks, pathways, and connectivity.

In 2022, the Washington State legislature passed a $17 billion transportation package that included $5.2 billion for transit, bike, and pedestrian projects.

It was the first time multimodal investments were larger than highway capacity expansion funding.

Improving transit can help nondrivers and everybody else, says Author Anna Zivarts.

In her book, When Driving is Not an Option, she recounts dozens of anecdotes of people enduring long, frustrating transit trips or not being able to access it at all.

WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

In 2023, 7,318 people were killed by vehicles, a 14 percent increase over 2019, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA).

It also reported 1,149 bicyclists were killed on U.S. roadways in 2023, up four percent from 2022.

Safety is a major concern. Author Anna Zivarts — an avid cyclist — says she's seen a disproportionate number of deaths and injuries among those who bike, walk, and roll.

City, county, and state departments of transportation need to plan for safe multimodal mobility from the start, she says, not leave it as an afterthought.

That means funding mobility appropriately.

Transit, sidewalks, pathways, and connectivity should be weighted equally with multibillion-dollar bridge and highway projects, she argues.

WHEN DRIVING IS NOT AN OPTION

STEERING AWAY FROM CAR DEPENDENCY

People of color, those with low incomes, immigrants, and people with disabilities tend to have lower rates of car ownership.

They also have less housing, mobility, and job options. 

Fewer than 25 percent of working-age adults who are disabled work full- or part-time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to 66 percent of non-disabled adults.

In many cases, it is not the underlying disability that stifles employment, but rather the lack of transportation access to fulfilling work opportunities and financial independence.