Beyond the Wheel

The Benefits and Barriers of Embracing a Sustainable, Car-Free Lifestyle

In Anna Letitia Zivarts' compelling book, “When Driving Is Not An Option: Steering Away From Car Dependency ( May 2024 — Island Press),” the spotlight is cast on the vast segment of the U.S. population that doesn't drive. 

The reasons vary—disability, economic barriers, or legal impediments—but the result is the same: a significant portion of the community is marginalized in a transportation system designed primarily for those who can drive. 

Since 2012, living without a car has not only been a lifestyle choice for me, but a profound journey through America’s cities, witnessing firsthand the intersection of mobility and inequality.

My car-free lifestyle began as a personal challenge in the walkable streets of Denver. Public transportation, Lyft, and other transport alternatives became my mainstay for distances my feet couldn’t cover. Moreover, the Mile High City offered a robust public transit system and a burgeoning bike culture, which align well with my growing environmental consciousness.

Las Vegas and San Diego followed, with their unique transit challenges and rewards. Each city taught me something new about what it means to navigate urban spaces without the autonomy of a personal vehicle.

By way of example, Las Vegas, with its sprawling distances and 24-hour lifestyle, often made car-free living feel like a gamble. Yet, it was here that I embraced the efficiency of buses and the occasional thrill of scooters, weaving through the neon-lit streets. 

But it has been my recent move to Fort Collins, Colorado, a city that prides itself on being a Platinum-rated Bicycle Friendly Community, that has allowed me to pursue a transport option that I hadn’t previously utilized. 

With over 200 miles of dedicated bike lanes here, I am finally embracing cycling, transforming my daily commute into a pedal-powered pleasure. I am grateful for the city’s extensive network of marked bike routes that has not only facilitated my mobility but also deepened my appreciation for sustainable urban planning.

Zivarts’ book resonates deeply with me as it underscores the critical need for inclusive transportation planning. It’s not just about creating alternatives to driving but also about integrating these alternatives into the fabric of our urban environments. The book details how nondrivers navigate life with a mixture of resilience and innovation, relying on a patchwork of public transit, rideshares, and the kindness of community networks.

In reading her book, I was particularly struck by interviews revealing the hidden struggles of those who can’t drive—whether it’s the unreliability of paratransit, the expense of constant ridesharing, or the simple act of crossing a city without a car. These stories are a testament to the human spirit but also a damning indictment of our current transportation paradigms.

Zivarts argues compellingly for a shift in perspective: viewing the needs of nondrivers as central, not peripheral, to urban planning. The book lays out actionable steps for individuals and organizations to advocate for more inclusive policies. 

From improving sidewalk connectivity to ensuring that new developments prioritize accessibility, the path she charts is both visionary and practical.

In my years of living car-free, the benefits have extended beyond personal health and finances to a broader understanding of community and connectivity. Walking, cycling, and using public transit have connected me more deeply with the cities I’ve lived in than any car ride ever did. It’s a slower pace of life, but one that is rich in detail and ripe with encounters that are often missed in the hustle of traffic.

In addition, the environmental and social benefits of reducing car dependency are clear. Each step towards a more accessible city is a step towards a healthier planet. As Zivarts highlights, the climate crisis demands that we rethink not just how we drive, but how we live and move through our spaces. Creating cities that support nondrivers isn’t just about equity; it’s about sustainability.

Ending with a checklist for readers, Zivarts doesn’t just critique; she empowers. This approach has inspired me to advocate for better biking infrastructure and support local policies that prioritize pedestrian spaces. It’s a commitment that each of us living in a car-centric world can make, in varying scales, to foster environments where everyone can move freely.

Zivarts’ book “When Driving Is Not An Option” doesn’t just advocate for change; it is a roadmap for building a more inclusive and sustainable future. For anyone who has ever felt confined by the limits of their mobility or concerned about the environmental footprint of their commute, this book is both an eye-opener and a call to action. 

I am a living testament to how car-free has not only been feasible but fulfilling. I believe it's a journey that more of us might consider, not just for our sake but for the planet's.

Why did you decide to write When Driving Is Not an Option, and how has your experience as a low-vision nondriver influenced the book?

Zivarts: Growing up in Washington State as someone with a disability, I didn't know any other adults who couldn't drive. I moved to NYC so I could have the same mobility as my peers. Living in NYC it didn't matter that I didn't have a license and couldn't get one. 

On returning to Washington to be closer to my family to raise my son, I started to meet lots of other people who couldn't drive through my work at Disability Rights Washington, and I realized that I wasn't alone. 

I started thinking about this book because I wanted to make these stories visible. First, so that other nondrivers would know there were a lot of other people in a similar situation, and second, so that we could start to organize and demand communities that worked better for us.

How would designing a transportation system that treats the needs of nondrivers as essential make our communities better for everyone?

Zivarts: Car-dependency is a bummer. It means that we have to create all this storage for cars in our urban and suburban environments. This adds to the cost of housing, and the costs of groceries. It also means we have to invest massively in road building and road maintenance for all these cars to get to where they need to go. But beyond those land use costs, car-dependency has huge public health costs, including injuries and deaths due to road collisions; air and tire dust pollution; and a lack of safe, comfortable places in communities for people to get outside and walk, roll, or bike.

Non Drivers can more easily imagine a future where we transition away from car-dependency because, in addition to all these broader harms, nondrivers also experience the isolation and lack of opportunities created by car-dependency. When we start to imagine how our communities could work without everyone driving everywhere they need to go, that's how we begin to untangle car-dependency.

In the book, you reveal that one-third of Americans cannot drive, and yet non-drivers receive very little focus in transportation planning and engineering. Why are nondrivers and the challenges they face so often ignored?

Zivarts: Think about who non drivers are - poor people, disabled people, Black and Brown people, recent immigrants, people too young to vote, young people less likely to vote, and people who have aged out of driving. When you consider who can run for and win elected office, who works in a municipal transportation department, or who has time to show up at a community meeting, it's likely not us. Especially because our communities are so car-dependent, showing up at a community meeting or even having a full-time job can be really difficult, if not fully impossible, for nondrivers in most communities across the US.

Even in a city like Seattle that's known for having a robust transit network, it still takes me three to four times as long to get to most places within the city via the bus as it does for my peers who can drive. This means that just buying groceries, getting to the doctor, and going to work are all much more time-consuming tasks, leaving nondrivers very little time to do anything but focus on meeting basic needs. 

If fewer people drove, we'd have denser neighborhoods with more local services as well as more frequent, reliable transit that goes to more places. But as it is, too many communities are set up to only be easy for driving.

What are three things anyone can do to make their community safer and more accessible for nondrivers?

Zivarts: Take the Week Without Driving challenge! This year it is September 30 - October 6, 2024. You can learn more and sign up at weekwithoutdriving.org. The challenge is a way for you to experience what it's like to be a nondriver by trying to not drive yourself anywhere for the full week. 

You can still ask and pay for rides, take the bus, and walk, bike, or roll. Even if you end up needing to drive for some trips, the challenge is a powerful way to reflect on the choices that people in your community who don't have the option to drive might be asked to make.

If you want to go a step further, you can also encourage your elected leaders and public agency staff to participate. Nothing helps someone understand the importance of funding sidewalks like having to walk down the shoulder of a road in the dark with their kids!