One-third of Americans don’t have a driver’s license. Anna Zivarts says it’s time for transportation planners to include them in decision-making.
In the fall of 2021, I was invited by Roger Millar, the head of the Washington State Department of Transportation, to speak to the board of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials at its annual meeting. Before the meeting, Secretary Millar explained that I’d be presenting to the heads of each state department of transportation, and I started to get nervous.
I am not a civil engineer. I don’t have a degree in urban planning. I have never worked for a transit agency or department of transportation. What I had was my lifetime of experience as a disabled non-driver and stories from the hundreds of other nondrivers from every corner of Washington State. I believed that because of that experience, I had knowledge and experience that people who have driven their whole adult lives do not.