As a needs assessment, her list benefits all. Most drivers don’t drive all the time, and most drivers will experience times when they or family members are nondrivers. Hurdles abound these days to inclusive transport, but there is little to stop transport insiders from adopting her outline of needs.

Under “bike, ride, and roll,” she challenges as arbitrary our distinction between transport and mobility devices. For example, we obsess about “range anxiety” for EVs; she points out that battery life and charging stations also equal freedom for those using electrified wheelchairs or scooters.

In others, she challenges transportation planning conventions. She insists that “intercity buses and trains” be included on a list of otherwise “local” transportation and that “remote access and delivery” be included on a list of “passenger” transport modes.

Zivarts has a lot of great insights under each heading. In some she speaks sad truths: she is too much of a realist about the U.S. to use a heading that describes robust transit service. Instead, she emphasizes the difficulty of using what little service there is.

What Nondrivers Need (con’t):
Nondrivers ask or pay for rides
Nondrivers move to access services (when we can afford to)
Nondrivers stay home
Nondrivers rely on remote access and delivery services
Nondrivers need local connections

What Nondrivers Need:
Nondrivers rely on sidewalks
Nondrivers need safe and accessible street crossings
Nondrivers use whatever transit is available
Nondrivers rely on intercity buses and trains
Nondrivers bike, ride, and roll

However, if you make a list of the section headings in her Chapter 2, you end up with something that resembles the outline of a standard planning tool: a needs assessment. Moreover, it reflects her direct experience as a nondriver and an outsider to typical transportation bureaucracy.

Chapter 2 is organized around section headings that identify the specific transportation needs of nondrivers. Zivarts does this as a storytelling device. She wants her readers to get an in-depth understanding of what daily life is like for nondrivers in the United States.

Zivarts also has a lot to say to those who play the inside game, such as writing reports or scoping the planning studies that inform government decision-making. While her Chapters 3 and 4 build to her solutions, I keep finding myself revisiting Chapter 2 on “What Nondrivers Need.”

As an activist, her strategy is an outside game. She advocates for her community—non-drivers by circumstance or choice—by bringing their perspectives and expertise directly to transportation decision-makers. One tool is the Week without Driving (Sept. 29-Oct. 5, 2025).

weekwithoutdriving.org

I want to highlight every line in this excellent piece. Logic alone says fund public transit and we all win.
@savesepta.com
@savesepta.com
@severedlimb.bsky.social

“Unlike most other wealthy countries, the US has chosen to keep transit going without ever letting it thrive”