A Week Without Driving

The Dane Alliance for Rational Transportation believes you shouldn’t have to drive to thrive in greater Madison and Dane County. DART’s goal is a “car optional” region where driving is a choice, not a requirement.

But for many driving isn’t even an option to begin with. In Wisconsin about 31% of the population is considered a non-driver for one reason or another. In parts of Dane County the number may be as high as 40%.

Ensuring that everyone can get where they need to go, and do what they need to do, regardless of their ability to drive, is a matter of basic justice. But the more fully we make mobility for non-drivers a reality, the more easily those who currently drive can choose not to.

In short, everybody wins when the voices and perspectives of non-drivers are included and taken seriously in the transportation conversation.

That, in a nutshell, is what the national Week Without Driving challenge, running from September 30 to October 6, is all about. At one level that challenge is pretty much what the title implies: try to go an entire week living as one normally does—but without getting behind the wheel of a car.

But it’s less about simply giving up driving for a week than about seeing our communities, which are so often designed around constant driving as a way of life, through the eyes of those who can’t just get behind the steering wheel at will. And it’s about discovering what it’s like to navigate those communities without a car, often in built environments that fail to take the needs of non-drivers into account.

The Week Without Driving is also an opportunity to focus on, and become better acquainted with, the various available alternatives to driving alone—from shared rides, to transit, to walking and biking. This may prompt some pleasantly surprising discoveries while also highlighting the work still needed to make these alternatives truly safe, convenient, and accessible for all.

DART invites those interested in learning more about the national Week Without Driving initiative and the principles behind it to visit the initiative’s website. There you can also sign up for the Week Without Driving challenge on that site. More local (greater Madison and Dane County) resources for joining the challenge and encouraging others to do so can be found here.

Update 9/22/2024 - DART has created its own page devoted to Week Without Driving, and geared in particular to DART’s support for Week Without Driving in Dane County’s second largest city, Sun Prairie.