A Week Without Driving … or Biking?
Happy Week Without Driving to all who celebrate!
The annual event continues to grow as more and more communities sign up to challenge themselves and their elected and agency leaders to get around without driving a car for just one week. It's both a personal challenge and an opportunity to better understand what life is like for the one third of people in the U.S. who cannot drive whether due to age, disability or economic reasons, an issue Anna Letitia Zivarts documented well in her book When Driving Is Not An Option. Zivarts is a founder of the event, which started as a Disability Rights Washington project but has since gone national with the help of America Walks and its Executive Director former Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn.
I already don't own a car, which is basically cheating for A Week Without Driving. I bike, walk or take transit for nearly all trips, but mostly I bike. However, as I was waiting for the 594 bus from Tacoma to Seattle Monday, I was thinking about A Week Without Driving and how it's also true that not everyone can ride a bicycle. People's disabilities and life circumstances vary wildly, and I know people who cannot drive but can ride a bike, people who cannot ride a bike but can drive, and people who can't do either. Even though our society hasn't spent a century designing our communities and our transportation system to prioritize biking at the expense of every other mode the way it has with car driving, the challenge of trying to make a dramatic change to my transportation habits has intrigued me. What would be like to modify the event for myself this week and commit to a week of walking and transit?
Get comfortable on the coat rack, bike helmet, because I'm gonna try getting around town without my bike this week.My week started with a speaking event in Tacoma Monday (I was the lunchtime keynote for the Washington State Rideshare Organization conference), and so I had to figure out the best way to get there without a car. With child care responsibilities dictating my travel schedule, taking the Sound Transit 594 bus made the most sense because it provides the most flexibility. Plus it is by far the cheapest option. The 594 is usually a great bus, but for some reason we just were not on the same page. Both times I took it I watched the bus leave as I was approaching the stop, so I had to wait the full 30 minutes for the next one. This is part of transit life, and in both cases I could have made the bus had I planned just a bit better. But it was a timely reminder of how living reliant on transit can sometimes punch 30-minute holes in your day (or worse). Of course, a bad traffic jam can do the same for folks who drive. Reliability and predictability are major reasons I love biking so much, and perhaps I've grown accustomed to it.
As I waited for the bus Monday and contemplated life without biking, I immediately started to find reasons why I couldn't possibly do it. Many of my excuses sounded an awful lot like the reasons people often give when confronted with the idea of not driving. For example, I gotta get the second grader to school. She can take the school bus, but they changed her bus route this year so that she is the last kid dropped off on the route home, and she doesn't like how long it takes to get home (nearly an hour after the final bell). Of course somebody has to be last, so I'm not saying she is treated unfairly, but it is also fair that she doesn't want to sit for that long every day if she can avoid it. Metro's Route 20 used to go practically from our house to her school, but the county cancelled that route a year ago and now there is no useful public transit option. Her school is a half hour walk away, which means for us parents it would be an hour of walking for both drop off and pickup. So instead we either use the cargo bike or she bikes herself and we ride with her.
I love biking with her to and from school, and it's one of the highlights of my day. But it wasn't until I started writing this post that I realized how eroded all the other options had become. If I couldn't ride a bike, then I suppose she would just have to put up with the long school bus ride. I know there are families out there that don't even have this option. Maybe this is why the school pickup process seems to be more chaotic this year compared to the previous two. Lots of folks assess all their options and decide driving is the only one that works for them, which causes all kinds of headaches and traffic dangers in school zones. However, I didn't want to force the kid to bear the brunt of the negative consequences for my personal no biking challenge so I went ahead and biked her to school today.
Then there are the hobbies. I have a rec league hockey game late tonight in Lynnwood. It's about an hour by bike, and I look forward to having a nice long late night bike ride every week. It's also so much easier to put my sticks and big heavy bag of gear on the cargo bike than it is to haul it onto public transit. I've taken my gear on the light rail before, but never a bus. I would also need to lug it all for a total of 25 minutes of walking on both ends of the game to make it to all the transit connections, which would not be very fun especially when I'm tired after the game. I know it is possible, but it wouldn't be nearly as comfortable or easy as just biking it. Many of my games end after the last transit runs or are at rinks without any transit access nearby, but I could technically make tonight's game happen via light rail and Community Transit's Swift Orange bus. My shoulder aches just thinking about it. But I'm stubborn, so maybe I'll give it a try anyway.
Other tasks like grocery shopping would also have to change. We are in the habit of shopping by cargo bike about once a week, but there's no way I'd want to carry that much stuff onto the bus. The solution is to go to the store more often but buy fewer things each time, which I honestly might learn to prefer anyway. It is a significant adjustment, though, and it means I'd be spending more total time each week making grocery runs.
Finally, I will have to end the challenge Friday because I have fun weekend plans that involve biking, and I'm really looking forward to them and YOU CAN'T STOP ME STUBBORN TOM YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME.
Many of my hangups have solutions. For example, if I took the 594 bus more often, I would learn the tips and tricks to make sure I don't miss it (like transferring from light rail at SODO Station instead of Westlake if the timing looks tight). Seattle is a great place to try a walking and transit challenge. Far too many communities have either no transit or infrequent service that doesn't even run every day. I will also likely learn some new strategies and life patterns that I enjoy more than what I am used to today, which is one of the big benefits I often hear from people who decide to commit to a biking challenge. Sometimes you're just in a rut, and shaking up how you get around is a great way to experience your daily life and your city differently.