"It was a great experience to be able to invite people to join me. I think so much of my experience of riding a bike for my primary transportation around town. My colleagues see me as an outlier, as that would never work for them. That's just something that Nick's decided to do. He's rearranged his life. [I liked] having the opportunity to invite people to try it for a week and not just exclusively biking."
"I actually had the mayor and our city council president take me up on it. I saw our council president at several public events that week showing up on his bike and the mayor at least once with a Walk to School Day that we did in partnership with our public school system. But I think it's been the conversations that I've taken after Week Without Driving with other elected officials who didn't participate that have been most eye-opening."
Week Without Driving started in 2021 and encourages people to use alternatives to driving for a week. Elected officials and advocates from Arizona, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Washington, DC reported varied engagement and outcomes. Some officials joined by biking or taking part in Walk to School Day, while others viewed biking as impractical. Short challenges helped normalize active transportation and opened follow-up conversations with nonparticipants. Walk-to-school activities exposed hazardous infrastructure where a county road designed like an urban highway separates a mobile home park from a neighborhood school, highlighting safety and equity concerns.
Read at Streetsblog
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