We’re most of the way through the National Week Without Driving, which is when people who regularly drive — especially those in decision-making positions — are asked to find another way to move around.
There is a point to it. Those who control budgets or (re)design roads or approve those designs should have some idea what they are doing, which they truly cannot know unless they have experience.
I don’t mean sheltered experiences, like the kind of walk audits where a large group of people goes around together in hi viz vests. That’s not how the average pedestrian in Connecticut uses the roadway. Almost every driver is going to yield when there are enough people that a strike would total their vehicle. Gather a dozen people and put them in neon vests, and motorists think these must be important folks to be out like that. While it’s good in the short term to receive all this caution, it does not tell the politicians and planners what it feels like to be a normal plain clothes pedestrian using the street without a posse.
Going about life without being behind the wheel means having first-hand experience with reading public transportation schedules and figuring out fare systems. It means learning where the stations and stops are, and aren’t. Where you have benches and where you are standing in tick-infested knee-height grass on the side of the road. Feeling how long you have to wait to get a walk signal, only to be granted enough time to cross one leg of the intersection (*cough cough* West Hartford Center *cough cough*). Yes, even when you are in the able-bodied adult category, you might have to sprint or else wait through another full light cycle. But you’re not supposed to run. You’re told to walk, always, when crossing roads. There will be children present and you’ll want to model the “correct” behaviors, but those behaviors don’t get you where you want to go with any efficiency, because most of our streets have been designed to prioritize flow of vehicular traffic, not safety and not flow of humans. These are all necessary experiences for people to have when they are mayors/first selectpersons/city councilors/traffic engineers.
They also get the opportunity to see what it is like to chat with people on the street. Find money on the sidewalk. Pet dogs on the way to work. Text or watch videos (with earbuds in, for the love of God) while riding public transit. Read books on the bus. Not waste brain space remembering where they parked their car or when they have to refill the meter. Weave exercise naturally into their day by walking or biking. Listen to birdsong while walking home from the bus stop. Not have to touch a grody gas pump.
I take issue with how this week is sometimes framed, though, which is that life without driving is full of hardship.
If you’ve spent more than two minutes looking at anything I’ve written, you know I don’t view transportation through rose-colored glasses. But being car-free is not necessarily a hard thing. It’s mostly different. There are aspects of it that should be better and are very fixable. That doesn’t mean life without a car is difficult. My quality of living has generally increased since I got rid of my car. I am significantly more physically active and I’m not sinking money into insurance, maintenance, gas, car tax, and registration. Had I known this would be as doable as it is, I would have done this much sooner.
The photo with this post was taken over the weekend. I was walking down the middle of Park Street because I could. It was open for people walking and cycling from Park Terrace in Frog Hollow to Prospect Avenue in Parkville. There were activities, music, and information tables set up along the road. This open streets festival gave people a taste of mobility outside of the motor vehicle, but really, the focus was on sampling other ways we can use the public space we call the street. Understanding how our current designs and systems work, while visioning ways to improve our use of space must go hand-in-hand.
Climate Possibilities is a series about climate mitigation, along with resilience, resistance, and restoration. It’s about human habitat preservation. It’s about loving nature and planet Earth, and demanding the kind of change that gives future generations the opportunity for vibrant lives. Doomers will be eaten alive, figuratively. All photographs are taken in Hartford, Connecticut unless stated otherwise.
National Week Without Driving: Day Four
We’re most of the way through the National Week Without Driving, which is when people who regularly drive — especially those in decision-making positions — are asked to find another way to move around.
There is a point to it. Those who control budgets or (re)design roads or approve those designs should have some idea what they are doing, which they truly cannot know unless they have experience.
I don’t mean sheltered experiences, like the kind of walk audits where a large group of people goes around together in hi viz vests. That’s not how the average pedestrian in Connecticut uses the roadway. Almost every driver is going to yield when there are enough people that a strike would total their vehicle. Gather a dozen people and put them in neon vests, and motorists think these must be important folks to be out like that. While it’s good in the short term to receive all this caution, it does not tell the politicians and planners what it feels like to be a normal plain clothes pedestrian using the street without a posse.
Going about life without being behind the wheel means having first-hand experience with reading public transportation schedules and figuring out fare systems. It means learning where the stations and stops are, and aren’t. Where you have benches and where you are standing in tick-infested knee-height grass on the side of the road. Feeling how long you have to wait to get a walk signal, only to be granted enough time to cross one leg of the intersection (*cough cough* West Hartford Center *cough cough*). Yes, even when you are in the able-bodied adult category, you might have to sprint or else wait through another full light cycle. But you’re not supposed to run. You’re told to walk, always, when crossing roads. There will be children present and you’ll want to model the “correct” behaviors, but those behaviors don’t get you where you want to go with any efficiency, because most of our streets have been designed to prioritize flow of vehicular traffic, not safety and not flow of humans. These are all necessary experiences for people to have when they are mayors/first selectpersons/city councilors/traffic engineers.
They also get the opportunity to see what it is like to chat with people on the street. Find money on the sidewalk. Pet dogs on the way to work. Text or watch videos (with earbuds in, for the love of God) while riding public transit. Read books on the bus. Not waste brain space remembering where they parked their car or when they have to refill the meter. Weave exercise naturally into their day by walking or biking. Listen to birdsong while walking home from the bus stop. Not have to touch a grody gas pump.
I take issue with how this week is sometimes framed, though, which is that life without driving is full of hardship.
If you’ve spent more than two minutes looking at anything I’ve written, you know I don’t view transportation through rose-colored glasses. But being car-free is not necessarily a hard thing. It’s mostly different. There are aspects of it that should be better and are very fixable. That doesn’t mean life without a car is difficult. My quality of living has generally increased since I got rid of my car. I am significantly more physically active and I’m not sinking money into insurance, maintenance, gas, car tax, and registration. Had I known this would be as doable as it is, I would have done this much sooner.
The photo with this post was taken over the weekend. I was walking down the middle of Park Street because I could. It was open for people walking and cycling from Park Terrace in Frog Hollow to Prospect Avenue in Parkville. There were activities, music, and information tables set up along the road. This open streets festival gave people a taste of mobility outside of the motor vehicle, but really, the focus was on sampling other ways we can use the public space we call the street. Understanding how our current designs and systems work, while visioning ways to improve our use of space must go hand-in-hand.
Climate Possibilities is a series about climate mitigation, along with resilience, resistance, and restoration. It’s about human habitat preservation. It’s about loving nature and planet Earth, and demanding the kind of change that gives future generations the opportunity for vibrant lives. Doomers will be eaten alive, figuratively. All photographs are taken in Hartford, Connecticut unless stated otherwise.
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