Anna Zivarts recently visited Minnesota and gave presentations related to her book When Driving Is Not an Option. We have a recording of her Rochester talk, and an exclusive interview with her on the podcast!
Links
- When Driving Is Not an Option, Island Press
- Week Without Driving
- Email Parker about the Streets.mn Podcast Book Club!
Attributions
Our theme song is Tanz den Dobberstein, and our interstitial song is Puck’s Blues. Both tracks used by permission of their creator, Erik Brandt. Find out more about his band, The Urban Hillbilly Quartet, on their website.
This episode was produced by Regina Burstein and Sylvie Hyman, edited by Parker Seaman, hosted and engineered by Ian R Buck, and was transcribed by Stina Neel. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the show, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected].
Transcript
[00:00:00] Ian Buck: Welcome to the Streets. mn podcast, the show where we highlight how transportation and land use can make our communities better places. Coming to you from beautiful Seward, Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am your host, Ian R. Buck. It’s not often that we have urbanist celebrities visit the state, but recently, Anna Zivartz, author of the book, When Driving is Not an Option, came and gave presentations in Rochester, Minneapolis and Duluth.
We’ve got a real treat for you in today’s episode. A recording of her Rochester talk, an interview with Anna, and a special announcement at the end. Let’s dive in.
[00:00:46] Anna: Hi, thank you all so much for having me here tonight. It’s really an honor to be here in Rochester and to be with you all. I know it’s been a rough couple of weeks on a lot of fronts, Um, and I’m just, I do feel honored that you’ve taken the time out of your lives right now to be here in this room with us tonight, um, to talk about building a better future.
Um, I’m going to start, and I, I’m going to do my best to, to visually describe the slides that I’m presenting, um, from my own practice of accessibility and to make sure everyone in the room can access this material. Um, and so this first, image is something that gives me a lot of hope. First of all, there’s an image of the book cover When Driving is Not an Option, and on it, there’s an image, um, a drawn, it’s like a hand drawn image of some people with different abilities waiting for a bus stop, uh, for a bus at a bus stop, and, uh, among, um, those people, there’s older people, there’s younger people, and it was actually drawn by a friend of mine, um, who also is low vision, uh, also is visually impaired, um, and I’m really honored she was able to, to, to do the art for the, the cover of the book.
The image behind it on the screen is of my kid and another kid from my block, and they are riding the bus, and they were riding the bus because I was taking them to the library, um, because the, the, a neighborhood kid doesn’t have a library card yet, and I wanted to make sure that she went there and got one.
And this image gives me a lot of hope, um, because it’s, you know, so many of the things that I hope we can all have in our communities someday. That we can know and trust our neighbors. That we have accessible public transit that’s within walking and rolling distance. And that we have places to go, public resources like libraries that all of us can get to.
So I’m keeping that hope in mind, um, in these moments of of challenge that we’re going through right now. So I want to talk a little bit about myself and how I got here and why, why me, why here right now. Um, where did I come from? I grew up in Washington State, so I was born near our state capital. And I was born with a condition called nystagmus.
Uh, and it’s a neurological condition, it makes my eyes shake a little bit. All the time, um, and that reduces my visual acuity. And so, um, I, I have a white cane here. I use it sometimes. I don’t necessarily need it for navigation, but it’s very helpful for me to signal to other people that I can’t see them.
Um, so I use it especially at conferences because people expect that I’m going to be able to recognize them across the room or read name tags, and I can’t do that. Um, I also use it a lot in airports because I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble with TSA, um, where they’ll be like, go that way, and they’ll point, and I won’t go the right way.
I’ve had some incidences, so I, I use it when I travel, um, and, and another, you know, big, big impact of my vision is not being able to drive, um, and that has really shaped the way that I access the world, um, because our country is so car dependent, and so on the screen there’s two images, the first is of me learning how to ride a bike, um, as a kid, and I am, I feel very fortunate, my mom was a big, a big cyclist, she’d biked across the country in the 70s, and She was insistent that I was going to learn how to bike, and so despite, you know, it being a little trickier with my balance and my vision, I learned how to bike, and biking has been a great form of transportation for me.
Um, that picture was taken at my friend’s house. Um, she lived in, in the city where there were sidewalks, and I was super jealous of that, because I grew up on a road, and this image on the right is the, the road that I grew up on. Um, and it’s a rural road. There’s no sidewalks. It’s surrounded by tall trees.
There’s no shoulder. Um, it’s about 10 miles outside of town. And so Growing up there, I felt really isolated and alone. Um, I didn’t know other people who couldn’t drive and, uh, or other adults, and that felt really hard to me. And, um, I actually, I, so I went to the DMV when I was 16, and I tried to pass the vision test, and I, I failed.
And then I still thought I was going to be able to drive, and so I had my friend teach me how to drive um, in her mom’s truck, and I ran that truck up a tree in a parking lot, and that scared me, and that, that made me realize, okay, I am a non driver, this is, this is the world I’m going to have to inhabit.
Um, and that, that led me to the, the work I’m doing now, through a long and circuitous path, which you heard a little bit about, uh, in my bio. I want to pause for a second and have you all think about who you know in your own lives who are non drivers. And maybe that’s you, uh, maybe that’s your children who do not yet have their driver’s license maybe because they’re not old enough or, uh, maybe because they’re choosing not to. Um, maybe that’s people in your family who are aging out of driving. Maybe it’s people with disabilities. Maybe it’s people who can’t afford to drive, can’t afford a license, have a suspended license, uh, don’t have documentation for a whole host of reasons.
And the image on the screen is an image of some folks waiting at a bus stop. Uh, this is, I believe, in Austin, Texas. I was on a bus and I was taking pictures outside the window. And so, you know, the second you start sort of noticing and thinking about transportation access, you start to notice all the people who don’t have access to driving.
So, I want to touch sort of broadly on the different categories of non drivers, um, that I talk about in my book and that you, you probably will recognize all these people in your own lives as well. Um, the first category, and this is really the heart of the book, because it’s, it’s the world that I work in.
Um, I work for a disability rights non profit in Washington State, and so interact with many people with disabilities. And so the first category is people with disabilities who can’t drive because of their disabilities. And this can be, I, I, I think of this broadly too, right? It’s not just people who identify as disabled because that word disability still has so much stigma, um, that, you know, I, I didn’t identify as disabled for many years until my mid thirties, really, and I got connected through, through Twitter at that point to disability, the disability community and started being able to feel like, you know, it was a place that I, I could identify with and wanted to identify with.
Um, so, you know, all kinds of disabilities can prevent driving. Uh, we’d heard about diabetes. vision disabilities, epilepsy, other health conditions. People can be able to drive some days and not other days, right? It can be, it can fluctuate. Um, people with mobility disabilities too, right? Maybe you can drive, but you can’t afford a car that has hand controls.
And there’s an image here of Erica, who lives in Seattle. She’s using a power chair here, and she Um, needs to use her power chair to get around. She can drive actually, and she can even drive a car without hand controls. Um, like a, a regular car, but she can’t afford a car that allows her to bring her power wheelchair with her, a wheelchair accessible vehicle. And so if she wants to go anywhere and get out of the car, she has to take transit. Um, so I consider her a non driver as well. So yeah, lots of different kinds of disabilities. Every time I, I talk it to different crowds of people. I feel like I hear other stories, other experiences, traumatic brain injuries, many, many different kinds of things that can make driving unsafe or uncomfortable.
Um, one example of this, someone who, you know, I would perhaps consider disabled, but she never would have used that word for herself, is my grandma. Um, she’s pictured here on the bottom left, and she had a heart condition that would cause her periodically to pass out. Um, but she lived in rural southern Indiana and there was no way she was gonna leave the farm where she lived and where her animals were and she wanted to live there.
And the nearest town was 40 miles away on, you know, 40 miles away. And so she kept driving and she kept driving even though she kept on passing out and people would find her, you know, in her car on the side of the road, sort of driven off into a cornfield somewhere. Um, and that was, that was what she did, um, until she finally passed away in her sleep, thankfully not hurting anyone in the process.
But, you know, there are many people who age out of driving safely or comfortably, or age out of driving at night. Um, my parents are at that point, um, in their lives now. Yeah, and so, so older non drivers are a big segment of non drivers. Um, then there are younger non drivers, people too young to drive, obviously people under the age of 16.
Um, and there’s an image here of my kid and another kid on our block waiting for the school bus. And, you know, we have created sort of this whole transportation system with school transportation focused on younger non drivers, non drivers who can’t yet drive themselves. And we, we value their access to schools, right?
That’s why we fund bus transportation. Maybe not enough. Um, but but it’s funded, right? Um, in many places because we recognize that there’s not always a parent who can take them there. Um, there’s not always a parent who has the the transportation access or the time, um, to provide that transportation to school.
And it’s still really valuable for kids to get there. Um, and I just wish we had that same commitment to everyone in our communities, right? Um, that we recognize the value of everyone’s need, um, to get places and be connected. Another big group of non drivers. Um, and then the last thing I want to talk about is, um, Bus riders are people who can’t afford to drive or, um, Who can’t afford to maintain or own a vehicle for a whole host of different reasons.
For us in Seattle, this became really, really visible during the pandemic. When bus ridership in our city collapsed, right? Among choice riders, people who were white collar commuters. A lot of tech workers. We had a lot of routes focused on bringing folks from the suburbs. Into our downtown. Um, they were high speed routes.
They were pretty comfortable. They were very crowded. They’ve generated a lot of income for our transit agency. Um, and that ridership just went poof overnight as the pandemic started. What didn’t go away was the people on the routes that served low income communities and communities of color, um, immigrant communities in our south end.
And so this image in the middle is some folks on the bus. Um, during the pandemic, this was my bus route, and it really stayed pretty busy the whole through, through all of the pandemic because people didn’t have another choice. People were using that bus because that was their only option for transportation.
Um, and so that happened in a lot of transit systems throughout our country, um, during the pandemic is that visibility of who really needed those systems to go places, who didn’t have, um, other choices that were feasible. And then finally, the last big category of non drivers. Are, um, what I consider sort of choice non drivers and choice, I think it’s a slope, right? There’s different sort of categories of choice, but people who, you know, perhaps have a driver’s license, but you know, would rather not spend that money on a car because money is tight and they want to use that money for something else. So they’re gonna figure out how to bike and walk and take transit places.
People for environmental reasons, for climate reasons, for health reasons are choosing not to not to own cars. Um, and this is a big group, and this is an increasingly big group among young people. And this part makes me really excited. Um, there’s a big group of people in their late teens and early 20s who are choosing not to get driver’s licenses.
Uh, at the same rates that they did in my generation in the 90s. So when I was a teen, um, in the 90s, about 50 percent of 16 year olds got driver’s licenses at 16. Now that’s down to about 25%. Big decrease. And those decreases, um, not quite as dramatic, but they, they maintained up until people in their, their 20 to 25 year age range, too.
So, um, that, that gives me a lot of hope. So, all together. Non drivers are about a third of the U. S. population, and this is a number that I think is surprising to people, and I do get pushback, right? People are like, it can’t really be that many people, um, but the reality is you take together everyone who doesn’t drive, um, whether that’s by choice, uh, because of disability, because of age, because of income, um, we, we are about a third of the population.
Now, I wish we had better numbers on this, um, the numbers we have aren’t perfect because there aren’t really good measures. We measure, you know, how many cars per household, but that doesn’t really tell you who has access to that car within a household. We look at driver’s licenses, um, but there are people who drive without licenses.
There also are a lot of people who have a license who can no longer drive or cannot afford a car. And so those aren’t perfect measures either. Uh, in places where they’ve done a little bit deeper digging, so in Washington State and Wisconsin, uh, the state DOTs did research and in Wisconsin, it’s about 31 percent of the population are non drivers and Washington State researchers found it’s about 30 percent funded through our state legislature.
So big, big numbers. I don’t know the number here. Um, and I, I hope it’s something that someday you all have an answer for. As I mentioned before, as, as you start to sort of think about non drivers and you start to look, you start to see non drivers. And if you’re a non driver, you probably already do this.
You see other people. You notice people waiting for the bus. You notice people walking down the side of the rural highway. You notice, and this image here is, is a path, uh, worn into the grass on the side of a highway where there’s not a sidewalk. Like you notice these signs of where people are. Um, trying to access their communities without reliable access to a vehicle.
So how do non drivers get around? Um, this next part of the, the conversation, I’m gonna ask some rhetorical questions, but I’m gonna ask you to sort of answer them to yourself, um, in your head. This first image, um, is an image of Jaime Torres, and he’s a non driver from Washington State who had a traumatic brain injury.
Um, and he describes Um, what it feels like to, uh, not be able to drive, to have to rely on others for rides and the depression that he felt, um, being trapped at home, um, as a result of that. And so, you know, I think one thing that we hear often when I, when I talk to my own family, when I talk to other non drivers, is people just tell us, Oh, well, why don’t you just ask for rides?
Like, sure you can’t drive, but there’s plenty of people in your world who can drive. Isn’t it easy just to get rides where you want to go? Uh, and the reality is it’s not. Um, even if you have a, a deep social network, even if you have a, a partner, even if you have kids who can drive, even if you have parents who can drive, each one of those times you need to go somewhere, you’re asking a favor.
And that comes at, you know, that comes with a cost, that comes as a trade off. Uh, and so I want you to think about your, in your own head, just think to yourself, the last time that you had to ask someone for a ride somewhere, maybe it was to the airport, or to a medical appointment if you’re someone who can normally drive, and, uh, what you felt like you had to offer in exchange.
What we see as a result of non drivers, um, not having this kind of access, that having to rely on social connections to get places, is that the things that we give up are the things that we consider to be somewhat optional, right? Like, it might feel okay to ask someone for a favor to get to a doctor’s appointment, but asking for a ride to, you know, go out to a dinner or go out to a play or go out to a social event, that can feel much more, uh, discretionary, much more optional.
And so those are the sorts of things we give up. Um, this is some new data. I haven’t actually, uh, shared this publicly before. You’re my first audience that gets to see this. Um, so, uh, but, um, we did a survey, uh, with about 70 non drivers from Washington State and we asked them, what are the things they give up?
Um, what are the things they miss out on because they can’t drive? And I put those questions, it was qualitative answers, so they were sort of long form, and I put them into a word cloud generator, uh, just to sort of get a sense of what are the things people are saying. And it was really shocking to me what floated to the top.
Though, I mean, shocking, I guess it was not surprising. Um, but it was, it was really clear, right? It was those sort of social engagements. Friendships, this word cloud, the big words that are popping up are family, dinner, friend, meetings, social, ask, church, recreation. Those are the things that people are having to give up because they, they do not have access to transportation because we live in such a car dependent society.
I also then in the same question asked folks about what, uh, you know, what is the impact of that on your life? Like what is the impact of, of not having rides to places that you need to go or not being able to get there yourself? Um, and again, the word cloud, the big words here are social, depression, isolated, miss, work, job, find, hard, event.
Right? So you sort of get the idea, um, that, that it is really, it is having an emotional impact. On, on the health, the mental health of so many non drivers. Also, we started to think a little bit about this in, in terms of not just like, you know, what, um, transportation not, not just as the goal in itself, right?
But where are you trying to get to? Where are those places? And what are those places? And so, um, this one I think is a little more interesting. We asked, you know, what are the things that are easy for you to get to? Um, and grocery was the big one. So that, that’s, that’s good. I guess people need food. Also store, work, medical, shops.
Um, but then when we asked what are the things that are hard to get to, uh, the big things were appointment. And I think this is particularly relevant to this audience here in Rochester in the context of, of, you know, health, access to health, access to appointments, access to medical care. In Washington State, one of the biggest challenges we hear over and over again in transportation access is access to medical care.
And I think a lot of that is because our medical care. is centralized in Seattle, and if you’re outside of Seattle, getting into Seattle can be really difficult. And I imagine the same thing is true here, right? That rural transportation, transportation from smaller communities, um, transportation to here to Rochester, right, from other parts of the state, uh, is limited.
And so if you cannot drive yourself, um, getting to those, those appointments, especially if there was specialists. So what are the things that make getting places easier? Um, so that we don’t have to necessarily rely on, on favors, rely on friends and family, um, rely on asking, or if we can afford to, rely on paying for rides.
Access to transit. Transit is freedom. And this is an image here of Abby Griffith. Uh, she is a blind non driver from Washington State, um, who grew up in a rural part of the state. And had a lot of depression in high school because she was home. Her mom had, was a single mom. She had other siblings. And her mom wasn’t able to, you know, didn’t have the time to drive her places.
So Abby was stuck at home. And finally she was able to, to, uh, figure out how to get her own apartment. Uh, in a nearby city in Vancouver, Washington. Um, which is just across the river from Portland, Oregon. And she was thrilled that she could get herself to the grocery store. She could get herself to meet friends.
Um, that she lived close enough to the bus stop. And that freedom, um, for her was just liberating. So thinking about, in your community, maybe it’s now or maybe it’s in the near future, because I hear you’re getting some new investments, but where does transit run? Where, where does it not run? How frequently does it run?
Uh, and when, when does it not run? I think that’s a big one. I know, as someone who can’t drive, Whenever I think about moving to a city, um, when I left New York City, actually, I was, I was kind of freaked out about leaving a place that had 24 hour transit. How was I going to live somewhere else? Um, and I picked Seattle because it had the best transit in, um, Washington State.
Um, but, you know, had I moved back to my hometown I had friends who lived there in the blind community who described to me they couldn’t get to work on time because transit didn’t start running till 7 a. m. Right? And if you had to be at work, um, and your commute was longer, the, you know, it wasn’t gonna work.
Um, going back to that, that, that survey, um, with, uh, the, the 70 respondents in the word clouds, I just thought this was interesting. Um, when we asked people, what would make things easier to get where you wanted to go? The biggest words were transport, route, more, bus, service, paratransit, transit, right? Very clearly about transit access.
Um, that one floated right to the top. It’s important though that we think of transit not as an isolated thing, right? Though as part of a larger network, and that network includes sidewalks.
Um,
and I have to say, I spent some time walking around Minneapolis. And then this morning, um, and I was, I was pretty excited to see, well, not perfect.
You had a fair amount of sidewalk clearing from snow, which does not happen in Seattle. People just don’t understand that concept. Um, but understanding that these are, you know, that if you do not have a bus stop, that’s wheelchair accessible. If you do not have a smooth, accessible sidewalk, if there’s no sidewalk at all.
That bus stop becomes, the people who can use it become limited, right? You, you lose a lot of people who would otherwise be able to access that. And there’s two images here. Um, the image on the upper left is Krystal Monteros, who’s a wheelchair user in Tacoma, Washington. And she lives across from a low income, she lives in a low income apartment complex that’s across the street from a major bus stop.
But that bus stop doesn’t have a sidewalk, and so it’s mud. Um, and she’s in her wheelchair, so if it, it gets really icky, she has to get friends to help, sort of, from the apartment complex, come over and push her through the mud. And so, she’s been advocating with us for a number of years now to get a sidewalk built.
It’s, it’s still not built yet. It’s one of those places where there’s utility lines, and everything got really complicated and expensive, and if they just moved the curb over a little bit, it would be easier, but that would mean taking a lane, so. It’s a fight. The image on the right is, uh, two other folks, um, from Washington State, Kat and J. R. And, um, they live out in a more rural area, and we were going to visit a friend of theirs, and the bus stop near their friend’s house was loose gravel, and Kat is in a power wheelchair. And so, if she was to pull into that loose gravel, she would flip her chair or get stuck. And so, instead of doing that, we just, well, she waited, in, on this, on the pavement, there’s no shoulder of this rural road, and there’s cars going past us at like 40, 50 miles an hour.
Um, and I, I felt sort of obligated to stand out there with her, and it was terrifying. Um, yeah, it was, it was a really unpleasant situation, and there’s no, there’s no, you know, pad there to pull out, and there were, the transit agency had no ADA transition plan to even sort of map out how many of bus stops in their system were like this and what the plan was to eventually get them paid.
Uh, paved. So there’s a quote also here from Krystal Monteros, who says, We need to start thinking of public transportation and sidewalks as going together instead of as two separate things. You can’t use the bus stop if you can’t get yourself to the bus stop. And I, I just think that, that says it all. Um, we often, you know, our transit departments are separate from our Um, our sidewalks are, you know, DOTs and, and we don’t integrate them into the same system.
We’re not thinking about how do we have this connected network. Crossings are also part of this. If, you know, and you mentioned that a second ago in, in your comments, um, the person who shared, uh, you know, if you have a major arterial, you have to cross. If you have an on ramp or an off ramp, this is a highway off ramp, and there’s a group of folks here in this image trying to cross. Um, to get to a bus stop. There’s also an image of my friend, Micah Lusignan, who was, uh, at another on ramp in Seattle. They’re building a light rail station in the middle of this, like, highway cloverleaf thing. And so there’s these on ramps and off ramps that don’t have lights that pedestrians are gonna kinda have to dash across.
which is a really dumb idea. Um, and I can’t believe nobody stopped them from doing that. But, you know, I think the people who were building the light rail weren’t really thinking about the people who are going to be using that light rail and what their experience was going to be like of getting to that, that, you know, that station.
Um, and so Micah has said as he was waiting here, he went over and that what he thought was an accessible pedestrian signal button to, to, to push because he’s blind, um, to cross is actually a sign that just says, Use caution while crossing, um, and there’s cars coming off the freeway coming around this like blind turn, um, at highway speeds and he’s going to have to just sort of step into, um, into their path and hope they stop to get across.
We are working, um, we actually got a raise grant through the federal government to study possible solutions, um, my dream is that we actually close some of these on and off ramps and we, um, yeah, make it less of a horrendous place for pedestrians. So thinking about, uh, in your own communities, where are those places that are difficult to cross?
Where are there missing sidewalks? Um, where are there sidewalks that don’t get cleared of snow? And there’s an image here from Seattle in my neighborhood where my neighbor cleared his Or her driveway. I actually don’t know this particular neighbor. Um, they, they perfectly cleared their driveway from snow, and they did not clear the sidewalk at all.
And so the driveway is, you know, perfect, and the sidewalk is an icy mess. Which, um, you know, for those of us who are not in a wheelchair, it’s perhaps less treacherous. But if you’re in a wheelchair, this becomes completely unnavigable. Um, and in Seattle when it snows and people don’t clear it means some of my friends get stuck in their homes for, you know, until the snow melts, which could be three days.
It could be five days. It could be more if we actually get a cold spell. So there’s also an image here of, uh, uh, Tanisha Sepulveda, who’s a power chair user and she is rolling in the street, um, because there’s no sidewalks and, um, y’all probably heard the news a couple of weeks ago, there was a mom killed uh, in St. Louis, um, who was walking in the street with her kid, pushing a stroller, um, because the sidewalks weren’t cleared of snow and she, she got hit. Um, yeah, thinking about where are those places in, in your community that are those gaps that are almost, you know, uncrossable sort of rivers in, in access.
I think it’s important for us to also think about not just walking and rolling, but sort of thinking about broader e mobility as an access point too. I grouped this all together, um, even though I know it’s not a single category, because I think it’s useful to sort of think about it together. Both electric bikes, electric wheelchairs, electric scooters, regular bikes, right?
These are all forms of transportation access, um, and can be really powerful tools to get where we need to go, especially if we live in communities where the distance we need to travel, um, are too far for us to walk for whatever reason. Uh, and so, um, there’s a, a quote here from Ian Mackay, who’s a power chair user in Washington State.
And has someone who’s been working really hard in Washington State, and I know there’s, there’s work on this nationally on right to repair, um, the ability to be able to fix your own power wheelchair without voiding the warranty. Um, but he’s also a huge proponent of getting longer lasting batteries in power wheelchairs because a lot of them are designed, you know, to meet sort of insurance requirement minimums, um, but not really designed for someone who wants to be able to go out.
And, you know, and cruise around all day without having to charge or be able to cruise around in the rain without having things zap in the system. He says oftentimes people’s lifestyles are shaped by the equipment that they have. A family should be able to go spend the day at Disneyland and not run out of batteries.
Um, and there’s an image of Ian, uh, uh, on a trail in Washington State. He organizes these sort of long distance, fully supported, really wonderful, accessible bike rides, um, and wheelchair rides with folks from all over the country. Um, there’s also some images of other folks using trikes and using electric bikes.
As I mentioned before, I, I bike. Um, it’s been a great point of access for me. I’ve met many other low vision, uh, people who bike, uh, because we cannot drive and use it for transportation. And so I’m excited to be part of the conversation tomorrow at the eBike Policy Summit to talk about how eBikes really are a tool for access and freedom.
Um, and we need to make sure they don’t get regulated in a way that excludes. Uh, low vision folks and other folks with disabilities. So we were sort of talking about the, um, the access piece of this, right? Like, how do you get places? How do you get that transportation need met? But I think the other side of the equation is, how do we make sure that the places we need to go are close enough to where we need to be that that transportation becomes less of a, less of a lift, less of a barrier, right?
And so I am personally really excited about this sort of land use part of the conversation. How do we reduce The distances we need to travel because it has, you know, incredible potential health impacts, uh, climate impacts, environmental impacts, and I think most of us would prefer, um, to, to, you know, not have to travel far distances to get places, whether that’s in a car or not a car, right?
There’s an image here. This is, I think, an image from Albuquerque, New Mexico, um, where I was for work at some point and I was trying to get somewhere and it was just, This sort of desolate, super hot, um, no tree shade, uh, suburban sidewalks, um, on a giant, giant suburban road. And there was a McDonald’s play space that was sort of the only environment that you wanted to be in.
I think, you know, part of this conversation is the housing affordability conversation. It’s something we struggle with a lot in Seattle, a lot in all parts of Washington State now is that the only place you can get housing that is affordable are these further out neighborhoods that are more sprawly, um, often lack sidewalks, often lack transit.
There’s a quote here from Vaughn Brown who’s a disability advocate in Washington State who says, more affordability means moving further out. Moving further out means more limited transportation. Question for you to consider is, you know, where are the places you need to go? Um, how far are they? Are there closer options?
We asked in that same survey, uh, that I did the word clouds with earlier about, you know, what, what, um, what determines, uh, where you chose to live. And it was interesting because again, the, I, I thought cost would actually, you know, float to the top of it because I feel like that’s something that we hear a lot.
But actually, at least in the word cloud version, um, the most common, uh, the common words were, uh, around access to transit and access to the bus. Transit, transportation, access, bus, close are the big words in that word cloud. So really I think people who cannot drive think very deeply about wanting access to transit, whether or not they can afford it.
That’s the question. I want to provide a more rural context too because I know, um, you know, in Minnesota, like Washington, has many rural communities and I think it’s important that we talk about transportation access. Not just in an urban context. Um, this is the community where my grandma lived. The one with the heart condition.
Um, it’s called Griffin, Indiana. It still exists, hardly. Um, but when my dad was growing up there in the 50s and 60s. It had a grocery store, a school, a pharmacy, you know, a gas station, cafe. Then Highway 64 got built there in the 60s. Um, built right through it, actually, not through the downtown, but right, right beneath it.
Um, and so suddenly, rather than sort of shopping locally, it became much more affordable for people to drive into Evansville, which is about 40 miles away. Um, but still, you know, more shopping options. And, you know, that caused the, the, basically the decline and death of this downtown. And the population has not decreased in this, in this county.
Um, but instead, people are just choosing to shop further away. And that works out great as long as you can drive. Um, but once you can’t drive, like my grandma, or I had toyed with the thought of moving back there at some points, and it’s like, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t get any of my needs met. Um, so what would it take to get more local services into our communities?
So that, you know, we don’t have to have, you know, travel that 40 miles, uh, into town. I’m going to pivot now and talk a little bit about, so there’s some sort of big picture, you know, Problems and some of the things we need to be thinking about to address them for non drivers. Um, how do we, you know, create these less car dependent communities?
The last chapter of my book, and it’s actually my favorite chapter, Um, really gets at the question of how do we make this change happen? Um, what will it take for us to get there? And for me, this is actually, I think, the work that I’m most excited about because it gives me the most hope in the future.
It’s about making sure that we have people in the room who have that experience of being non drivers Who understand what it’s going to take? Because I think ultimately that’s going to allow us to shift the conversation and to really create the change we need and there’s a quote here From Dr. Beverly Scott who is a former , she led a bunch of different transit agencies around the country, She’s sort of like a grandmother of transit and she said it is not a matter of altruism It is not a matter of oh, I’ll make two tables here And you’re going to be at the little table, and we’re going to be at the big table. This is a matter of responsibility on the part of those who are being good leaders and stewards.
So how do we create this space to get voices in the room that haven’t previously been able to even get there? And there’s an image here on the left of Abby, who I mentioned earlier, she’s the blind non driver. She’s leading a walk roll audit in Vancouver, Washington with some of our state DOT folks, uh, telling them what it felt like to cross the highway interchange they just redesigned and were very proud of.
Um, and it was not actually so easy to use if you, um, if you didn’t have vision. So, two concrete pieces of how to get more, more non drivers in the room is one is to hire non drivers. Um, and in Washington State, there’s two pieces of legislation that I’m actually actively working on right now through work.
One of them is around driver’s license requirements. Oregon and California have passed laws in the last couple of years that prohibit employers from requiring driver’s licenses unless driving is an essential function of the job. And that’s something we’re trying to do in Washington State as well.
Because we see this all the time, even at transit agencies, even at like, for ADA coordinator positions at transportation departments, it’ll be this default HR setting. Um, where it’ll be driver’s license required. And that means that a lot of people who don’t have that driver’s license for whatever reason are excluded from, you know, being considered for these jobs.
And sometimes it’s an explicit, you know, requirement on the job. Sometimes it’s just within the application system. Like, I’ve applied for a job at our, um, Seattle Public Schools to be a CFRS to school coordinator, right and it was part of the back end of the application So my application got screened out before anybody even saw it because I didn’t have a driver’s license.
So yeah, that’s that’s an important step So you get that expertise of people who you know, ride the bus who bike who walk who roll places Helping to shape our our agencies and our in our institutions and make them work better for all of us. The other piece is making sure that we have the voices of non drivers in rooms where decisions are being made about transit.
Um, in particular, uh, we see in Washington State, our transit boards are governed by elected leaders, but to be an elected leader, um, you pretty much have to have a driver’s license in that the requirements to sort of be a whole bunch of different places really fast. preclude anyone who can’t drive from being considered as a serious candidate in pretty much every part of our state.
And so what we end up with is these transit boards where the only people on the boards are people who, you know, are too busy to ride transit. And they don’t, not that they don’t care, some of them really do care about transit, some of them don’t. But they just don’t, they don’t have that day in day out experience of what is needed to make a system better.
And so we’ve also been working on legislation to add a voting seat for transit riders onto our transit boards. So that’s another place to start thinking about how can you add. Those voices, um, into places where decisions are getting actually made. No little kids table, um, actually the big kids table. The final, uh, opportunity I want to challenge you to think about, and I know that many people in, in Minnesota have already taken this on and thought about it, is the Week Without Driving Challenge.
This is a challenge that we launched in Washington State. in 2021 and, um, we launched it as a way to educate elected leaders about the experiences of being a non driver. And since then, it’s become a national challenge. This year, we had participation, I believe, from all 50 states. There’s an image here of different logos from different organizations all over the country who participated.
It’s now organized in partnership with America Walks. Ruth Rosas there is the National Week Without Driving coordinator. She’s a tremendous organizer. Um, and has done really fabulous work to bring this challenge all over the country. Um, I’m gonna show you a quick video of some highlights from the Week Without Driving this year.
And on the image, on the right, there’s also an image of Toledo. And I, I share this because I’m hoping next year someone one ups this. But they actually wrapped a whole bus with a Week Without Driving wrap. Their transit agency. Pretty awesome. I got to see it this, this, uh, this fall. All right. Cool.
[00:35:58] Ian Buck: Thank you so much for coming out here tonight and, uh,
[00:36:01] Anna: yeah.
Yeah, thank you.
[00:36:03] Ian Buck: And now Regina Burstein interviewed Anna on our way back from Rochester.
[00:36:09] Regina: Alright, most Minnesotans have licenses and access to vehicles. How do we get more people to choose to use transit and bike and walk when it’s so convenient to drive? Especially in the winter when many are unwilling to brave the cold.
And it does get very cold, as you have experienced.
[00:36:31] Anna: It does get very cold. I was just sharing that I left, uh, the hotel where I was staying at this morning and immediately got an ice cream headache from the cold, even though I was wearing my warmest hat from Seattle. So yeah, it’s very cold. I have to say though, I did notice right away when I got here yesterday on the light rail and today walking around, how many folks were out there biking.
Um, and walking too, but biking in particular. Just blew me away. So, uh, but I know, you know, it is, it is more of an ask to get around outside of a nice heated vehicle with heated seats in this kind of weather. But I think it’s important to remember that while, sure, a majority of folks in Minnesota do drive, uh, where they need to go for transportation probably most of the time.
There are still so many people out there who are non drivers, and I think we often overlook that because of who non drivers most often tend to be. And I think, we’re sort of used to seeing and hearing from what I would call choice non drivers. And choice, you know, I have that sort of in quotation marks because I think there’s a range of choices that we all make and, uh, you know, for, for some folks it may be a real struggle to afford a car.
Um, and so, you know, being a choice non driver maybe isn’t really a choice, but, um, is a choice they’re willing to make to be able to have some more spending money. But I think, you know, that we’re used to hearing from folks who have the option of getting a driver’s license, perhaps have the option of owning a car, and for, um, different reasons, for, for political reasons, for environmental reasons, for public health reasons, for mental health reasons, I mean, there’s a lot of benefits to, To biking and walking places, right for your mental health are choosing not to drive.
Who we don’t hear or see from are all the people who aren’t really able to make that choice. And that’s often because those are the folks that are low income, who are riding transit out of necessity, who are walking places out of necessity, who are using paratransit or you know, perhaps who live in more rural areas of the state and don’t have access to transit or paratransit.
And are instead having to rely on human service transportation providers or on friends and family to get where they need to go. Or, more likely than not, are just staying home. And so we don’t see them because they’re not out in the public as much as they’d like to be or would want to be. And so yeah, there’s all this sort of non choice, involuntary non drivers out there.
That also includes kids too, right? And I, I think You know, kids are a big percentage of the population of non drivers, probably about half people under the age of 16. And there’s a big desire to sort of discount kids as, okay, it’s this transitory time in your life where you can’t do a lot of things, and therefore, we don’t really need to count you as having valid needs or valid reasons to go places.
But we know that kids, you know, from the moment you’re born, you have to start going places. I remember, you know, having to take my newborn to a doctor’s appointment, you know, first week, right? Uh, kids, kids need to go places. And, uh, sometimes kids have parents and caregivers in their lives who can take them and can take them in a car.
Uh, sometimes they don’t, and kids still need to go places. And so, it’s important we design transportation systems that really can work for all of us. Um, and if we start to think about this sort of non driver coalition, And what’s possible when we start to build this big tent that includes choice non drivers and voluntary non drivers.
People who would like to be choice non drivers if it was just a little bit safer and easier to get places without driving. I think there’s a possibility to, to push for changes. That was a long way to answer your question.
[00:40:12] Regina: Well, thank you. That’s um, a pretty good segue to one of my other questions.
Despite the effort that advocates have put in, uh, it seems like a lot of transportation projects still focus on driver convenience and offer crumbs to other road users. The people that typically show up to engagement meetings are often wealthier and whiter, and so agencies tend to give in to their demands.
Uh, how can we get planners and engineers to center marginalized people in? City and transportation planning. Marginalized people and non drivers in city and transportation planning.
[00:40:53] Anna: Yeah, I mean, I, I’m saying non drivers, uh, sort of as shorthand. Um, I think, you know, we are talking, and when we talk about non drivers, we are talking mostly about people who can’t afford to drive, people who are disabled and can’t drive because of disabilities, people who have aged out of driving, um, you know, black households.
White households are, uh, way more likely to not have access to a car than white households in our country. New immigrant households are also much likely to have access to a car. So yeah, when we talk about non drivers, I want to, you know, be explicit that we are talking about people who have less access to resources, um, and often less access to power and decision making.
And, you know, that’s reflected in the transportation we have, right? It’s a transportation system that works well for drivers and not so hot for everyone else. And so I think the first step in, in sort of creating this change is making visible non drivers and in particular making visible involuntary non drivers.
And that’s, you know, a big part of the work that I’m focused on is how do we make sure that we, we see and see the needs of people who are trying to get around and trying to get their needs met without driving. Um, and you, you know, there’s, there’s, you know, you watch who’s on a bus, who’s waiting for the bus, who’s walking down the side of a highway without a, without a sidewalk, without a shoulder.
Um, who’s biking down a rural road out of necessity with grocery bags, right? Who is, is, um, you know, asking for friends and family for rides places, right? Who’s, who’s, um, maybe not able to afford to go somewhere because the gas is too expensive. I think we need to start thinking more intentionally about all the people who are left out of, of places.
And, and so highlighting those stories is, I think, the beginning part of it. I think the other part of it too then is asking decision makers and people who normally do have the option of driving places to imagine what it would be like to be in a position of someone in their community who doesn’t drive.
And, you know, first they have to believe that that person exists. And so pointing out that they, yes, there are non drivers. Um, and, and two, how, how would they, how would they navigate in that situation? And that’s really what the Week Without Driving Challenge came from, was trying to help decision makers understand.
That, you know, there, there are people and you, it’s important for you as someone who’s making decisions about the whole community to understand the, the experiences of people who don’t drive and can’t drive. And get out there and, and try for yourself to navigate your own life, your own community. Uh, without that driving privilege.
[00:43:23] Regina: Uh, well speaking about, um, Week Without Driving, the program has spread across the country in just a few short years and has gotten thousands of people, uh, to experience life without driving. What communication strategies have been most effective for the campaign? Can you talk about how you’ve convinced so many people to go a week without their car?
[00:43:44] Anna: Wow, I mean, the Week Without Driving, it’s been really amazing to see how it has been taken on. And, and really, you know, it takes a lot of work to organize a week without driving challenge because it is a hyper local challenge, right? It relies on people in a community having relationships with their elected leaders, their transit agencies, community members who are non drivers, and to leverage all that into a week without driving.
And so, you know, watching communities across the country take that, um, has been really cool and I think it wouldn’t have been possible Without this partnership with AmericaWalks and in particular with Ruth Rosas, who is an incredible organizer there. It has really Helped this grow in a way that I couldn’t have imagined So part of it is just you know I think that the compelling message that non drivers exist and that we need to start talking about non drivers But then also, you know being able to sort of translate that and be organized enough to make it into a national campaign And that’s what Ruth has really been able to do.
So shout out to Ruth Um, and shout out to Week Without Driving National Campaign and the website for that I’m just going to plug is weekwithoutdriving. org. Um, and this coming year it will be September 29th through October 5th, Week Without Driving, nationally. Um, how we relate to Car Free Day. Also the same time of year of Safe Routes to School, like Walk, Bike to School Day.
Um, you know, there’s a lot of sort of Ride Transit Months, Bike Everywhere Months. I think the difference or the distinction between those and Week Without Driving is a lot of those are celebratory about how wonderful it is to do these things. And experience alternative, well, I hate alternative transportation, but how, how wonderful it is to try to walk or bike or take transit, um, and go places that you need to go.
Weak without driving, I think, is a bit more, I don’t know if negative is the right frame, but focused on the equity piece of it, like, that there are non drivers and that these, that there are places or gaps in our transportation system that exist, and that we need to highlight those and understand those so that we can make the transportation system better.
Um, so it’s not asking you just to take the easy trips or the enjoyable trips or the trip when the weather cooperates and you don’t have three grocery bags to haul. But really thinking about if you were to have to take all your trips within a week, if you were an involuntary non driver, what that experience would be like.
So, we are hoping to do some, um, collabos, right, with, uh, with some of these other, other campaigns, because I think there’s a lot of overlap. Um, but I think what we’re trying to do is a little distinct in that it focuses on, you know, all trips. Um, and, and the needs of involuntary non drivers in that sense of how do you really fully get around your community, um, in a way that, that is without, without having that car access.
And I guess, yeah, just to clarify, it, you can still get rides during the week without driving. It’s just like not being able to drive yourself. What that feels like.
[00:46:41] Regina: StreetsMN listeners, get ready to post all about your week without driving in September and October. Uh, one thing I’m sure you’ve run into in your advocacy is pushback on transportation projects when they include bike or bus lanes.
Uh, and potentially remove, remove parking or driving lanes. How do you handle the pushback, and how should we be talking to community members and small business owners that are angry about having less parking in front of their stores?
[00:47:15] Anna: Yeah, I mean, this one’s so hard, because I think anytime you change or push to change the status quo, right, people are gonna be upset, no matter what.
And we’ve have, in many places, you know, tried, for good reason, to create systems that allow for more community input. Um, and that’s important. But then when that, that sort of in turn just creates opportunities for people who have a lot of access to power, to have their voices be heard more frequently and more often, then it often makes change really, really difficult.
You know, I, I don’t have an easy answer and I think this often does come down to like politics and organizing and you know, individual communities and, and what might be possible in your community as far as building a coalition to overcome that opposition. Again, I mean, I’m gonna sound like a broken record.
I do think sort of focusing on the fact that there are non drivers and that non drivers also need to access things and need and want to be part of communities, too, I think is important. And so that if we do not have the infrastructure for non drivers to participate, we lose those voices. I think, you know, one place that I get pulled into because I work for a disability organization is the oftentimes disability access is used as a way to preserve sort of the car dependent status quo. Because, you know, for some people with disabilities, cars are a way to have access. Especially, you know, in a community where, you know, there aren’t sidewalks, or sidewalks are inaccessible. Where you can afford to live if you’re on a more limited income, because of your disability, is far out, away from where there is transit access, right?
And so, what I hope to be able to do in sort of the conversations that I’m part of is, Make sure that that’s not the only perspective that’s being presented to make sure that people understand that there are also many people with disabilities who can’t drive or can’t afford to drive. And so, disability is not, not a monolith, and not, you know, we can’t simplistically say that, you know, having disabled parking spots or, uh, maintaining car access is going to be, provide access for everyone in the disability community.
That we also need to have, you know, bike parking, um, bike parking for cargo bikes. We also need to have, um, you know, seating, uh, bench, uh, benches in our bus stops, right? We need to have a bus stop. We need to have wide and accessible sidewalks. Um, these things are also equally, if not more, important.
[00:49:43] Regina: This has been a very common issue with a lot of projects in Minneapolis in the last few years with the increase in bike lanes being built and the increase in 24 hour bus lanes.
And so there’s a lot of pushback between business owners who want to preserve their parking. And it’s, it’s been a challenge navigating that because the construction does make it more difficult for people to get to them. And they’re also not considering all the people who currently can’t get to them that will be able to get to them once there are bike lanes and, and better bus infrastructure.
So, yeah, reminding people that there’s a lot of people that could become customers with these changes is, is a great strategy. Something that American planners need to work on understanding is gender equity in transportation. Women tend to have differing needs. from their transportation systems than men.
Like, uh, frequent transit access throughout the day, not just during rush hour, better lighting, safer active transportation infrastructure, better rolling accessibility for carts and strollers, and so on. How do we get cities to start prioritizing these things in projects, especially when funding is limited.
I
[00:51:04] Anna: think this is such an important question, and I, I do think so much transportation work is still so male dominated.
I’ve had the, the privilege of going to the Transportation Research Board Conference. I didn’t go this year, but for the previous two years. And, and just, you know, you walk into those spaces and recognize that it really is still like a, a heavily gendered space. And, you know, as a result, the solutions that people come up with are for the problems they’re having, which aren’t necessarily the problems everyone who’s using the system are having, and so, I mean, all the things you list there, I think, are, are so important to think about. There was a question in, um, or a comment during my presentation today about safety, and I think that’s something that I get questions about a lot, and is something that I think about, I think, a lot as well, and I do think there’s much more we can be doing to create a sense of safety in a system.
Um, I do think lighting is important for sure, um, and also just, you know, places to go. One thing, it sort of connects to your last question, but, you know, having open businesses around where you’re waiting for buses at night is so helpful, um, because it gives you the opportunity to sort of step into a place and be around other people, um, and sort of have that protection.
And I, as a result of, you know, riding transit and walking places, especially with a kid, I spend so much more money at coffee shops and restaurants than I think people in cars do because I, you know, often need to wait places and don’t want to be waiting outside for a whole host of reasons. Um, and I, I know, you know, I think there’s been studies around, you know, people stopping more frequently when they don’t have a car to park and I think there’s also probably a part of it too where it’s when you want to have a warm cup of coffee to wait with or you want somewhere more comfortable to wait, you’re also willing to Um, and eager to, uh, go inside a, an establishment and spend money and, and just have the opportunity to sort of be somewhere well lit, have bathroom access, right?
That, that is also sort of another gendered piece that, that we don’t talk a lot about. Um, so I think those, those are connected and yeah, especially in transit, transit transfer stations too. Oh my gosh. The, you know, places where you’re, where a lot of people are going to be waiting a long time. Um, a lot of times of the day, having, you know, places to be able to get a coffee and go to the bathroom and, you know, have someone there who is, you know, some other, another presence, right?
Um, if you’re feeling like you need to stand close to someone. Um, that, that is so important, uh, and we’re not staffing or designing transit stations, at least in, in sort of the greater Seattle area, despite all our huge investments in our sort of light rail build out that meet the needs of, of, you know, people, especially, um, people with kids, people who need to go use the bathroom, um, people who, you know, want to feel safe at all times of the day, and we’re just not, Making a conscious choice to prioritize that.
[00:54:02] Regina: Well, thank you so much, Anna. Those are all of the questions that I have for you. Thank you! Thanks for, uh doing this podcast in the car.
[00:54:12] Anna: This is my first car podcast
[00:54:13] Ian Buck: All right, so if you missed that book event and you want to delve into this more I’ve got some good news for you. Our producer Parker is interested in starting up a book club concept here on the streets.MN podcast Parker Can you tell folks a little bit about like what you’re thinking with that?
[00:54:39] Parker: Sure thing! I have been wanting to try to find a way to engage with our wonderful listeners some more, and I thought a book club would be a good way to go about that. Something where we can pitch a book, give the listeners some time to get through it, develop their thoughts, and let us know what they think on it, and find a way to incorporate that into our episodes.
Um, also try to help share more, um, transportation, land use, et cetera, content out there that’s not just ours.
[00:55:15] Ian Buck: So, yeah, I don’t, I don’t think there’s a streets. mn book that’s been published just yet. Um, uh, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna will that one into existence just yet. Um, so, uh, so, so the structure of this, like the logistical structure is going to be, you know, you announce on an episode, hey, what’s our next book going to be? Everybody goes and reads it and then at a specified time, you know, everybody’s expected to have read it. And then we come out with an episode that like discusses it. Is that correct?
[00:55:49] Parker: Yeah. Um, and in the meantime, if people finish early and want to let us know what they think, um, we can have, uh, resources available for being able to send in those thoughts.
Or if not, you can just listen to the episode. And here are our takes on the, the book.
[00:56:10] Ian Buck: Yeah. And, and so you’re going to be picking guests for, you know, to, to do the discussion on, on those episodes. Right. Um, if folks are like interested in participating in that, you know, in that capacity, if they want to come on the show and chat about, uh, uh, a book, uh, can they email you or anything?
[00:56:31] Parker: Absolutely. They can reach me at parker.seaman@streets. mn. And if you want to be extra sure that I see your email, please include, uh, podcast book club in the subject line.
[00:56:44] Ian Buck: All right. So Parker, why are we talking about the book club right now, specifically on this episode?
[00:56:50] Parker: Because we just got done listening to a speech from the writer of When Driving is Not an Option, and a wonderful interview with that author. So it feels appropriate to have our first book for the Book Club be When Driving is Not an Option.
[00:57:10] Ian Buck: Sweet. All right. So everybody’s encouraged to go and find a copy of that. Um, read it. And Parker, when do you, when do you want people to have, uh, that finished? When are we going to come out with the book club episode discussion about When Driving is Not an Option?
[00:57:28] Parker: I take a while to read a book. And so I think it would be fair to everybody with their various schedules to give about two months time. So I’ll say in two months we’ll have an episode on the book.
[00:57:43] Ian Buck: Alright, so that’ll be probably mid May or early June. Correct. Sweet. Anything else that folks need to know about this book club before we sign off here?
[00:57:56] Parker: In addition to giving your thoughts on what you thought of the book that we’ve chosen, you are more than welcome to give suggestions for future books to read. Same format as before, email at parker.seaman@streets. mn and let me know what you think.
[00:58:11] Ian Buck: Sweet. Parker, I’m looking forward to it.
[00:58:14] Parker: Me as well.
[00:58:16] Ian Buck: And thank you for joining us for this episode of the Streets. mn podcast. The show is released under a Creative Commons attribution non commercial non derivative license. So feel free to republish the episode as long as you are not altering it and you are not profiting from it. The music in this episode is by Eric Brandt and the Urban Hillbilly Quartet.
This episode was produced by Regina Burstein and Sylvie Hyman, edited by Parker Seaman, aka Strongthony, hosted and engineered by me, Ian R Buck, and was transcribed by Stina Neel. We’re always looking to feature new voices on the Streets. mn podcast, so if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line at [email protected]. Streets. mn is a community blog and podcast and relies on contributions from audience members like you. If you can make a one time or recurring donation, you can find more information about doing so at streets.mn/donate. Find other listeners and discuss this episode on your favorite social media platform using the hashtag #streetsMNpodcast until next time, Take care!