Book Review: When Driving Is Not An Option

Anna Letitia Zivarts can’t drive. She is just one of the huge portion of our population that can’t drive because of their age, disability, or economic status. When Driving Is Not An Option is her account of the difficulties getting around in America when you cannot drive and what we could do about it.

When Driving Is Not An Option is a short book, only about 150 pages. The first half documents the number and reasons for non-drivers in America, and illustrates how difficult it is to get around for them. The second half cover what we can do to improve mobility for non-drivers.

Somewhere between a quarter and a third of people do not drive. In California, where most communities are completely car dependent, there are only 27 million licensed drivers in a population of nearly 40 million. That means more than 30% of Californians can’t legally drive.

Unfortunately, our communities are not designed to enable those non-drivers to get around. Public transit is typically show and unreliable, bike lanes are disconnected and unsafe, and sidewalks are narrow, loud, and unpleasant, if they exist at all. Even for able bodied adults, getting around without a car can be a challenge. For people with disabilities or who are young or old, getting around is impossible.

The solutions to this problem are straightforward and well laid out in the book. First, approach transportation and land use as an ecosystem. Getting land use right makes getting transportation right easier; getting transportation right enables the right type of land uses. Next, assess where the gaps are in existing transit, bike, and pedestrian infrastructure. Finally, invest in multiple transit options. Our communities spend a lot of their budget and land on roads. These resources need to go towards more than just moving cars through the city. None of this is rocket science, it just takes the will to do it.

When Driving Is Not An Option is another great book to help understand why transit options are essential. It also points to a while group of people that are often already in the fight for better transportation alternatives that can be strong allies in the fight against auto-domination. While When Driving Is Not An Option doesn’t cover much new ground, it provides a great perspective that is often missing from the transportation discussion.