By Connor Zamora, The Seattle Medium
Anna Zivarts cannot drive.
She was born with a neurological condition called nystagmus that causes involuntary eye movement. As a result, she is unable to pass the vision test on the driving exam.
Zivarts’ experience with being unable to drive has led her to become the director of the Disability Mobility Initiative Program at Disability Rights Washington, a nonprofit protecting the rights of people with disabilities. It also led her to release “When Driving Is Not an Option,” a book about the need for greater equity in our transportation systems.
Not everyone who isn’t able to drive has a condition like Zivart’s. However, everyone has the need to get from point-A to point-B. In a society built around car infrastructure, doing so is often extremely difficult for whom she calls “involuntary nondrivers.”
“Driving, most places in Seattle you can get to in 15 or 20 minutes. Even far places like north to south,” Zivarts said. “But if you’re going to take transit it becomes an hour and a half, two hours.
Rural and suburban areas often have low public-transportation ridership. Data from the 2019 National Transportation Database shows that 87% of the 200 least productive bus networks in the U.S. are in rural areas.
As such, urban areas like Seattle have more efficient bus and metro systems. These make getting around as a nondriver far more accessible. But rising rent prices in the most accessible areas of the city makes finding housing increasingly difficult.
“What little apartments and rental units and low income housing we are building is concentrated along all of our most dangerous high speed arterials,” said Clara Cantor, a community organizer with Seattle Neighborhood Greenways.
“All of those people who live there are also the ones who are getting the brunt of the air pollution, noise pollution, and the danger of being hit by speeding cars,” said Cantor.
In Seattle, 24% of its streets, or about 11,000 blocks, are missing sidewalks. These missing sidewalks are primarily located in the areas of the city where affordable housing is built. These conditions create a difficult challenge for involuntary nondrivers, as they are often limited to walking and public transportation regardless of sidewalk conditions or bus availability.
“Seattle is like every city in the state, which is to say it’s incomplete and it’s not fully extensive,” said Barb Chamberlain, the director of the Active Transportation Division of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT).
Active transportation refers to human-scale transportation other than vehicles, such as walking, biking, skating and rolling. Both active and public transit are essential to universally accessible transportation. Remedies include accessible sidewalks, safe street crossings and bus shelters.
Measures are currently being taken to fund these efforts, but they will require support from constituents in the coming months.
Mayor Bruce Harrell recently introduced a transportation levy that would provide $1.45 billion dollars over 8 years for transportation safety and maintenance. This includes increasing sidewalk connectivity, paving roads, making safer walking and biking paths, and improving connections to public transit, such as light rail.
“There’s a tremendous amount of need in our transportation system right now,” Cantor said. “We really have to look at the future and say, ‘what do we want our city to look like in eight years and how can we get ourselves there?’”
Seattle City Council is currently considering the proposal for the ballot in November.
Additionally, the city council is considering an update to the One Seattle Comprehensive Plan, which outlines their intent to extend transportation networks, decrease reliance on single-occupancy vehicles, and increase transportation safety.
The draft of the plan also addresses housing difficulties and outlines methods to build more housing, invest in affordable housing, and prevent housing displacement.
Zivarts recommends being active as a constituent in both the Seattle Transportation Levy and One Seattle Plan.
“Let your city council members know that sidewalks, and transit are important, that bike infrastructure is important, that we need to make sure that we are thinking about how to reduce car dependency,” said Zivarts. “Then at the same time… we need a comp plan that really does allow for and incentivize more housing.”
Everyone deserves to get from point-A to point-B. As Seattle’s public transportation continues to grow, these resources will be more accessible to everyone, not only involuntary nondrivers.
“There’s some real transit investment happening in Washington State,” Zivarts said. “It’s just really, really neat to see how many people are taking advantage of that.”
“Transportation independence is something we all want and something we all deserve,” Chamberlain said. “Build it and they will ride, build it and they will walk. If more people who can make a choice will be able to make that choice safely, we’ll be serving the folks who don’t have a choice.”
