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What Does it Mean to be a Nondriver "by Default?" · nondriver

• Devin: So I think centering stories of people who are nondrivers by default, what we can do is give those leaders that we talked about, the ones who are willing to listen, or maybe someone out there in in this audience that we hope to grow who would want to run themselves, you know, give them the opportunity to point to folks and say, like, you know, these are the people that I'm talking about. They're people who are just trying to make ends meet. Anna: Welcome to non driver. Devin: Real stories of navigating the world from people who can't drive. Anna: I'm Anna Zivartz. Devin: And I'm Devin Silvernail. Anna: I'm so excited to kick off our Non-Driver podcast with an interview with my co-host Devin Silvernail. Devin, I'm gonna read a little bit from his bio and then I'm gonna tell you why I'm so excited to be working on this project with him. Devin was born legally blind with Nystagmus. That's the same ⁓ condition I have. ⁓ he is a polydesign policy designer, advocate for equitable mobility, and a freelance video editor. His advocacy started in 2009. ⁓ he served on the San Francisco Pedestrian Safety Advisory Committee, ran constituent services for a San Francisco supervisor, and was the policy director for a Seattle City Council member. That was my former council member, ⁓ Tammy Morales. He and his family relocated to and ⁓ excuse my French pronunciation here, I'm terrible at this, Nantes France, in twenty twenty four, partly to have more autonomous mobility. And ⁓ Devin and I actually sort of brainstorm came up with the idea for for launching this podcast ⁓ when I had the chance to visit him in Nantes a couple of weeks ago and get to see a little bit of the life that he's building there ⁓ in a place with really ⁓ wonderful connectivity and access ⁓ for non drivers like us. So welcome Devin. Thanks so much for ⁓ being part of this project with me and and being willing to share your story. Devin: Thanks, Ana. I'm really excited as well. ⁓ I was really happy to welcome you when you came to Nantes and to show you around, ⁓ kind of show you the the slice of life ⁓ for which ⁓ I moved all the way across the world. And ⁓ it's really interesting though, because you and I we've known each other for long time now, maybe maybe five years or so, maybe a little bit longer. And I remember when you reached out to our office to invite ⁓ my then boss to participate in Week Without Driving. And I said to myself, like, Wow, okay, this person has nystagmus. I've never met anyone else in the world ⁓ in my entire life with Nystagmus. So ⁓ it was really exciting to meet you then and it's exciting to get this project going too. Anna: Yeah, I think for both of us, we grew up I mean, we both grew up in Washington State. I didn't know anyone else ⁓ who was visually impaired or blind growing up. I didn't have that connection. ⁓ I'm curious to hear more about your experience as a young person, ⁓ growing up with a visual disability, and then sort of when you started to realize that your mobility was gonna be impacted by that and what that that felt like. Devin: For you? I think as a young kid, I didn't really realize that it was that big of a deal. you know, I spent a lot of time with my cousin and he didn't have ⁓ any kind of disability. And you know, we played and did all that stuff just fine. And you know, I noticed in school it was maybe hard to see the whiteboard and things of that nature, and it didn't really hit me until I had a surgery when I was six. And then coming out of the surgery and then being able to look up at an exit sign and realizing that it had a word on it and it wasn't just a big, you know, green square. I think that was a a a really big deal for me. And still I think that it didn't really hit me until I was a teenager. And I kinda held held out hope that, ⁓ you know, when I turn 16 I can inherit my mom's car and I can drive around everywhere and and when all my friends were doing that, I ended up ⁓ just pulling my bike out of the garage and using that to get around. Anna: Tell me a little more, like for folks who don't know what Auburn is like, what is the built environment? What is the streetscape? What are sort of destinations as a young person you were trying to get to? Like describe that that for me. Devin: Yeah, you know, it's a really interesting place because it was a streetcar suburb of both Seattle and Tacoma way back when. And so it is kind of weirdly ⁓ like not a terrible place to to be a non-driver if you live in kind of the downtown area, which is maybe like five square blocks. ⁓ you you got a train station that has a an infrequent train to Seattle and Tacoma. But if you can take that train, you know, it's about 30 minutes ⁓ to Seattle, maybe twenty minutes to Tacoma. So that's not too bad. ⁓ it's relatively at that time everything was kind of in walking distance in my house. So the s supermarket, ⁓ my high school, in any kind of little shops. We had an open mic that I love to go to as a teenager that was also down the street. So it was kind of kind of cool, honestly, looking back on it. And then obviously once you got out of that area, Auburn is pretty geographic geographically pretty big. And once you got out of the area, ⁓ there wasn't really much option but to take a car. I think we had two or three bus routes that ran through the city. And ⁓ you know, so you could either go up the hill that way or up the hill that way. And you know, down towards Seattle. And that was basically it. Anna: How did your parents feel like was there any concern about you biking, ⁓ being low vision? And you know, I was encouraged to bike and I think it's it's interesting 'cause so many people who are visually impaired, I think there's lot of fear ⁓ around us being able to bike safely. But it was sort of like, Okay, fine, you can do it, you can do it and I don't know, I don't I don't remember being told I couldn't bike. Devin: Yeah, I don't think they they thought too much about it, to be honest. When I got my first job and I worked at a grocery store when I was sixteen, it was on the other side of town and I had to ride my bike there. And, you know, my parents actually helped, you know, buy me a new bike and and fix it up and all this stuff, because it was a new used bike. But, you know, they helped me get that rideable and not at all understanding that I was basically gonna be riding it on a highway if it's gonna get to work every day. Anna: So was transportation access part of your decision to move to San Francisco? Devin: I wanted to live in a like quote unquote big city at that time. And I was living in Seattle before that. And I was living in the heart of Seattle. I was living on on Capitol Hill, which is very much the center of the city. And at that time, now it's very much unaffordable. But at that time, you know, me being a broke student, I could live there. And I chose Capitol Hill because I knew that I could get anywhere easily. And I remember getting a job in in Chinatown, which is like 10 minutes away and and thinking like, ⁓ my goodness, I have to go all the way to Chinatown. Right. So I feel like I was in a pretty good position. But I moved to San Francisco because I wanted to live in a place that had more. ⁓ you know, at that time we had barely one light rail line. ⁓ you know, so moving to a city that had, gosh, I think there I can't remember. There's like five Muni lines and ⁓ you know, several BART lines that basically are the same thing, same line. So that was that was part of the decision. ⁓ what I didn't know was that Muni in San Francisco was at the time the slowest public transportation agency in the country. So it didn't really help. And I and I ended up just biking around the city because San Francisco is seven miles by seven miles. So you can get anywhere. Dangerously, you can get anywhere within about thirty minutes. Anna: Talk to me then about your decision to sort of become a an advocate. Like how did that transition into advocacy work? You say two thousand nine, like what was that was there a moment? Devin: Up until that point, you know, I kind of had kept, you know, this idea of me not being able to drive as kind of a secret. It was more, ⁓ I want to be environmentally friendly, or, you know, I'm living in a city, so I might as well ride the bus in or I walk places. And at that time, I wanna say they started to talk about the the streetcar route that was gonna go through that neighborhood. And I was really interested in that because I would be using it. And and so I started to go to, you know, I think community council meetings or something like that. And just kind of following along and and giving my input, that really kicked it off for me. And I think at that point I was still not quite connecting the dots. And I don't think that happened until I got to San Francisco. And I lived ⁓ on the top of Burnle Heights, which is a giant hill, ⁓ just south of the mission district in San Francisco. And I had to ride my bike, you know, up an incline, you know, because there was just one bus and the bus sucked and, you know, there wasn't Muni or Bart there. Right. And I think that was really where my advocacy became more than just like, ⁓ I think this would be a cool thing in my neighborhood, but more ⁓ I know that there are other people like me out there and even in this neighborhood, and I it w it's just it's hell to get to and from work every single day. And So yeah, I think it kind of really that grain was planted in Seattle and then ⁓ the sprout, you know, stuck up in San Francisco. Anna: And then you transition from sort of a advocate, which is is I think the role that I still find myself in and many people, you know, find themselves in who are sort of probably listening to this podcast are interested in and pushing for, you know, better ⁓ transit and biking and walking and ⁓ access, less car dependency from that sort of outside advocacy or also working on the inside, being, you know, working within city halls, right? Trying to affect change, ⁓ working in government. I'm curious about that transition. And what inspired that and and what it was like to sort of go from from that external place to, you know, then trying to actually fix things on the inside with a you know, the toolbox that you're given. Devin: ⁓ when I got to San Francisco, ⁓ I ended up just kind of on a whim, like volunteering slash interning for a supervisor's reelection campaign. He was my supervisor at the time, David Campos. And ⁓ he seemed really cool. So I decided, you know, why not give this a try? And so I volunteered for the supervisor. I didn't really do that much. It was a pretty solid, easy reelection campaign. ⁓ but then after that I ended up getting to go in and work in his office doing constituent services work. And you know, that really ended up being a very eye-opening thing because A, you know, elected officials, you know, supervisor or city council member, that that's not really their job to to handle the kind of day-to-day problems of of a constituent. You know, that's the job of the executive. And so what we did in that office was ⁓ you know, my job and I had a team of people, we we would connect people with you know executive departments that were doing that work that would be helping them. And I would hear these stories about people having these issues, particularly around housing and people with disabilities. And that stuck in the back of my mind as I moved back to Seattle. I got actually very interested in tenant rights work and you know, kind of step back. From even thinking about mobility, because I was again living on Capitol Hill. ⁓ and then I got a chance to go into City Hall again in 2020. By that time I had been married and I had a kid and I had been a little bit more open about who I am. And I had really embraced this idea that I I am a non driver by default. And so getting to go in there and and working in an office where honestly I had a such a great boss who was so willing to defer ⁓ to other people. You know, she didn't she didn't have this idea that she was the expert of everything, which was so helpful. ⁓ and and by that ⁓ you know, opportunity, through that opportunity, I was able to work with other folks who, you know, I I I also said to myself, I'm not an expert in this, so I could work with people from the Department of Transportation or, you know, from housing or whatever. But also with people in the community. And ⁓ you know, that was kind of the biggest joy. And I mean, honestly, like the really the greatest thing about working in government was being able to open that door for other people to come in. Anna: D is there is there a a an a project or an example of transportation access and the needs of non drivers that you can talk about during that time that you experience while working for a Cosmo Morales? Devin: I don't know if I could say there's any one particular project. ⁓ obviously, you know, the last piece of transportation legislation that I worked on, we worked together, you and I, on a sidewalks ordinance, kind of refreshing the complete streets ordinance in the city of Seattle. ⁓ but I would say one example I guess I could say i is ⁓ the hardening quote unquote of of the ⁓ paint and post bike lanes in our neighborhood. Because I was also kind of a dick. ⁓ when it came to doing work in city hall and I think you kind have to be kind of a dick a little bit. And, you know, I made sure that we got as many of those lane miles as possible, hardened and protected because the city had been ignoring our neighborhood for basically ever. ⁓ when it c comes to everything and kind of gaslighting the residents of the neighborhood into believing that that that's what they deserve. And ⁓ you know, so I was r I'm really proud to look at Seattle now and see a lot of those bike lanes have been ⁓ you know, hardened with concrete barriers and things of that nature. And the the thing that made me the most proud is looking back and knowing that every sing every single project we worked on, ⁓ we worked alongside community members. We didn't just do the thing and then solicit feedback after. It was really built with what people were asking for directly and ⁓ so that that that's why it makes it so hard to really think of one particular project. Anna: I mean, you mentioned earlier like i the benefit of having someone in the room who has that, you know, experience day in and day out of being someone who isn't getting around by driving. And I I that's something I harp on constantly in in the advocacy work I do is that I think those perspectives are often missing. ⁓ whether that's, you know, people running our transit agencies, not ever riding transit, you know, people running our transportation departments who never experience travel outside of a vehicle. Like i can you speak a little bit more about what it what it means to have that. perspective in the room and maybe if you learned anything, you know, sort of being on the inside and seeing what conversations would have been like had that that perspective not been represented. Devin: I mean, I think that in a lot of instances they would have probably been the same because even though I had that perspective, people didn't want to listen. ⁓ you know, I remember there was on on Beacon Hill in Seattle, that was in our district, there's been this ongoing saga about getting a bike lane installed there. I think finally this bike lane has gone in. The way that they did community outreach was kind of annoying because it's kind of like, well You know, we gotta come in here, so we gotta remove parking and and these kinds of things. And then people would come out and and and be opposed to that. And you know, there's a lot of fears of parking being removed and bike lanes going in and that causing gentrification, which ⁓ just doesn't happen. you know, the bike lanes are maybe the result of gentrification, but they never come before. So I remember having a lot of conversations like that where the Department of Transportation was trying to gaslight me. And ⁓ you know, maybe if I hadn't been there, I would have not pushed back or some, you know, we wouldn't have pushed back from our office. And that could have been, you know, someone saying, like, okay, well, I guess that's the way it is. You know, it's hard to say. I think there are some things that that changed, but you need to have more than just one person in the room. Otherwise, they're still gonna be able to, you know, roll their eyes. Anna: I think just for for context for people not in Seattle, I that that bike lane that did get built along a good chunk of of Beacon Ave, which is up the hill from the neighborhood that Devin and I lived in, in Rainier Valley, it's great. It exists. It's so heavily used. I was up there just last a week a week and a half ago going to an ice cream place with my kid that's along the bike lane and as we are trying to pull out from the ice cream place There were so many bikes using the bike lane, I had to wait like five, seven minutes to be able to cross this bike lane because it was just constant bikes. ⁓ so it it really has, I mean, transformed ⁓ access for that neighborhood and for the neighborhood that I live in, even though it's down a big hill in the valley below this bike lane, it's still probably the safest and easiest way for me to get t to downtown Seattle is going up the hill and then being able to take this bike lane. So knowing that these fights are, you know, fights sometimes, but ⁓ in the end when the infrastructure goes in and people see how it's working, ⁓ I think it it can be worth those fights. But I ⁓ I don't wanna have this be the the Mike Lane fights and and Seattle episode. 'Cause I think there's I mean, there's a lot of interesting pieces for me th i in you know your experience that I I think you know, I think we all ⁓ have this fantasy, right, of of, you know, when when the politics in our communities are hard and we fight for, you know, a decade getting, you know, five hundred feet of bike lane. ⁓ right, that it can feel it can feel so so impossible, right, to make change and that ⁓ the needs of of nondrivers, like it is an eye roll, right? Like that there's just this like failure to recognize that there are so many people in the US, in in North America and Canada, you know, in these really car dependent places that cannot drive, cannot afford to drive, don't have cars. ⁓ and and we're you know, not being represented in the w the transportation systems and the way we're, you know, zoning and and building our communities. But, you know, so then then it's like, okay, well maybe it's easier just to go somewhere where th there isn't that fight, right? And I ⁓ you know, for a long time I I lived in in in New York City and I I fantasize I still look at, you know, real estate listings in New York City and and dream about moving back somewhere. Right, with with better access. Or, you know, I come to visit you in France and, you know, fly into Paris and it's just like ⁓ transform transformational, ⁓ the the the infrastructure changes that have happened there, ⁓ and the reduction of car noise and air pollution, and ease of access now, ⁓ without driving in that city and and really through through Nantes as well. And so ⁓ do you wanna talk a little bit about your decision to leave? And I know it wasn't, you know, just transportation based, but ⁓ what it means sort of stress level wise and and to your, you know, day daily experience to be in a place where it's not ⁓ such a struggle, ⁓ to get where you need to go. Devin: Yeah. And that's so interesting because while you were while you were kind of setting that up, I was thinking about this interconnectedness of of this, you know, ki this kind of struggle of of not being able to drive. And you know, I was thinking about the neighborhood that we lived in. The street that I lived on didn't have sidewalks. ⁓ a large portion of our neighborhood didn't have sidewalks because they claim because it was annexed ⁓ too late, but it was annexed w it was one of the first ⁓ cities to be annexed in the city of Seattle, you know, ⁓ I think around the turn of the century. So ⁓ that's kind of a line of BS, but I digress. we didn't have sidewalks ⁓ on our street. that was a battle that we we fought a lot for a long time. Every every year ⁓ we fought battles to get sidewalks in our neighborhood. I have ⁓ I have the mailers that we sent out. ⁓ for you know four years that I worked there ⁓ to the neighborhood I have it up here on the wall this as a reminder of the work that I I did there. And ⁓ on every single one of the mail mailers we talk about how we got funding for sidewalks in the neighborhood. ⁓ and that may feel like a a small win, but it was it was huge and it's a huge win for a lot of people. ⁓ but I think about my street that never got sidewalks and ⁓ You know, it's kind of funny because we were the only house, it was a single family home. We were the only house on the street that didn't have one, let alone usually two or three cars. And maybe yeah, five months, four months before we moved here, ⁓ you know, we didn't have a car in our driveway. And, you know, it was around it was around the holidays and somebody threw a w a rock through a window and tried to break into our house. And you know, they s they stopped when they realized that there were people there, right? But you know, you they looked in the driveway and they thought, okay, well, there's nobody home. ⁓ you know, it's it's around Christmas time, let's go look and see if there's any great expensive things to steal. And ⁓ you know, so I think that's kind of symptomatic, ⁓ right, of the way that North America is built. I mean, let alone the whole idea that in that house ⁓ Every day we felt isolated, you know, versus here now. a, there's no isolation, right? I mean, we live in an apartment now in a in a really pretty dense area of Nantes. ⁓ we know all of our neighbors. The kids play together, we watch their kids, they watch our kids, the school is just down the street. And so I think that, you know, it has been a huge weight off of our shoulders because we don't have just that. getting from point A to point B problem in in America. We have that problem of maybe people want to break into your house because you they think that you're not home or ⁓ you know, that your area floods because they don't have drainage because they didn't want to build sidewalks. And there's all these kind of things. And just don't have to think about that anymore in Nantes. It's so weird. It feels like ⁓ you know like those lead vests that you put on when you get an X ray. It feels like I took one of those off and ⁓ I just don't think about it now. Anna: I when I y you showed me your bike parking room in your apartment building when I came to visit and I it just blew my mind because y it's a huge, huge room ⁓ you know, ⁓ in and just full, like I don't know, a hundred hundred and fifty bikes. ⁓ Devin: We can accommodate three hundred bikes. Anna: ⁓ my gosh. Yeah. ⁓ and I it just like that that feeling of not being alone, 'cause I think one thing that I I feel a lot in Seattle is that, you know, you are the only person waiting at the bus stop, right? You are I, you know, rarely see another cyclist. It's it's starting to get a little better in in South Seattle and the neighborhood I live in where I I I see more and more cyclists, and especially now with the lime scooters, the shared micromobility. ⁓ there's a big, you know, low income access program and so there's a lot of youth riding them, which actually gives me a lot of hope that maybe not that people listen to youth, especially youth of color, but ⁓ maybe it will help shift the the ⁓ political calculus a little bit to get some more infrastructure ⁓ for riding these. But, you know, it it doesn't, you know, I don't think there's, you know, other there's not hundreds of other people in my block or in my neighborhood, you know, with bikes ⁓ that they're using ⁓ to get around and it it just I don't know, that that feeling of of n of not being not being alone and then also the stress I think is is something that i you you know, w when w I was visiting you and and you sort of described the joy of not having that that weight every time you want to leave the house and sort of the you know, that political calculation, ⁓ my gosh, is it or not even political, but like safety calculation, like is it worth this trip, the stress that, you know, it it's gonna take to sort of navigate this crossing or, you know, navigate ⁓ this weight with a ch a child, right? Like those those pieces. Devin: Well, and that's funny because I think about like where we lived in Seattle and you know, every weekend would roll around and it's like, what do we do? Well, we can go to that park there or that park there because we know that ⁓ there's like a seventy-five percent chance that we're not gonna get hit by a car, it feels like, right? And ⁓ and so we just did the same thing over and over and over and over again because we had a young kid at the time and we just didn't wanna chance it. And ⁓ taking the bus would have been a hassle and you know it was just easier to like do the same thing and then be stuck in home. And here, I think about anywhere we go, I don't worry about if I'm gonna get killed. I I think about what okay, what's the fastest way to get there now? 'Cause there's five or six different ways to get anywhere. ⁓ and the thing that I love about this city is that if you talk to people who gr grew up here, it hasn't always been like this. And think a lot of the transport ⁓ the transformation has been over the past decade or so and I love living here because that makes me hopeful for places like Seattle. It just it just takes political will. And that's all it took in Nantes. And now every every conceivable like person that you can think of under the sun rides a bike here. It it there is no like quote unquote bike person in in Nantes because everyone just recognizes it's the easiest way to get around. It's faster than taking the bus or the tram. It's faster than walking. And you know, living in a place like here versus maybe Auburn. You know, when I lived in Auburn ⁓ and you know worked in Seattle and that took two and a half hours to get to work versus here if have to go more than 15 minutes away it feels like man what a slog. You know it And you know, and so it's just yeah, it's just a very it's just a very different feeling. And ⁓ I very much appreciate it. And I think that instead of looking at Paris or Amsterdam or Copenhagen or any these places, I think Nantes is a wonderful place to look because again, it it wasn't always like this. And it it's very recent that it is like this. Anna: Yeah, one thing I it was really cool. So ⁓ when I was there with you, you set up a tour with one of the the council members and so we rode bikes around and looked at, you know, some of the infrastructure changes that were happening and it was so cool to see how recent so much of it was. ⁓ and then, you know, like a lot especially these these public spaces that had been essentially, you know, plazas that were parking lots ⁓ being transformed into plazas for people. And you could tell, you know, like the trees and stuff getting planted were still baby trees, right? ⁓ but already these places were instead of being these like concrete expanses, were green and full of people. ⁓ and it just yeah, I think, you know, ⁓ it's easy to sort of, you know, critique, you know, this like, ⁓ man, you know, it's like we should all just move to Europe, like not well, not everyone has that choice, like the privilege involved in that, ⁓ narrative. But I think w the the hope that, you know, me getting to visit you there and and you getting to experience that life there, that, you know, that it is actually possible to make these transformations in our communities, ⁓ and make them relatively quickly. I don't know. ⁓ that that that, you know, feels like a point of hope. ⁓ though again, it still s feels so hard to do even the smallest things. ⁓ Yeah, I mean what would you say to someone who can't move to Europe, right? Or can't move to a place, ⁓ you know, Japan or, you know, somewhere where there is less car dependent, ⁓ infrastructure baked into you know, the culture and and the way things are. Devin: I'm really lucky. I married I married a French person. So, you know, that was kind of my my way here, right? I mean, ⁓ we were to we were together for 10 years before moving here, but you know, that's how I ended up coming here is is just luckily being married to someone who's from here. But I think that, you know, the there's this really big problem I in the United States, this lack of hope that has been fostered by people who want the status quo. And they know that if they If they take away that that hopeful feeling, then you know, nobody is going to want to fight. I I I always think of of what Harvey Milk said. He said, without hope, the uses of the world give up. And that is everybody who is fighting for some some sort of justice. And that is how a lot of the folks in power keep things the way they are. They they force you to lose hope. And I think one way is a ⁓ To elect people who are not willing to give up on that hope. ⁓ and then to get those elected officials to go and seek out ideas from other places. The wonderful thing about the United States versus France, for example, is there's a lot of power on the local level. You could completely redesign a city if you had the budget to do it in the United States. So I think that. ⁓ you can come to a place like Nantes or in other cities somewhere else and and see something that they're doing, borrow that idea, take it back home, and fight for it at your city council. And I think that is how we we build that hope in North America. We get the people who are willing to listen, the people that are willing to hire folks ⁓ who are nondrivers by default, and the the folks that are willing. Not just to listen to their constituents to go but to go out and then find solutions to meet those people's needs. And ⁓ you know, and there are some places who have ⁓ great council members like that and great mayors like that. ⁓ but you can't stop once you get one good person you have to keep fighting. And I think I I just know actually that is how you can do it in North America. ⁓ and you don't have to look that far. Go to ⁓ go to Montreal, go to You know, go to Vancouver. Vancouver downtown is quite nice. There's plenty of there's plenty of places domestically that you can look to as well. I Anna: lived in Tucson for a little bit and there's this rail project to connect Mexico City to Tucson that's sort of being floated by the Mexican government and I'm super excited about that. I mean, we're not in the political universe where that rail goes across the border right now and and Arizona pays for their their segment, but just, you know, thinking about what that could do for transforming ⁓ communities. Cause I think, you know, there are parts of, you know, Mexico as well that are really thinking more transformationally about ⁓ infrastructure. ⁓ and and really I mean we're sort of in this moment too with gas prices where I think there's a tiny bit tiny opening ⁓ for a conversation. You know, driving rates are way down, transit ⁓ ridership is up, bike ridership I've been hearing sort of anecdotally from folks around, you know, bike shops and and just people sort of pulling bikes out of garages and starting to replace trips ⁓ because of, you know, that that ⁓ gas prices being pinching people more and I you know, of course that's a a struggle ⁓ for folks who are already stretched really thin. But I think I don't know, it also it creates a little bit of opening ⁓ for us to maybe start to have the political muscle to pry open ⁓ some spaces, right? And and sort of ⁓ release that sort of stranglehold of ⁓ autodopendent infrastructure in our cities. Devin: Yeah, and I think the biggest like tangible issue that we have right now, ⁓ i is how cities budget. And ⁓ that is where you can make those decisions, right? maybe it's not high speed rail between Mexico City and Tucson, Arizona, which that sounds pretty cool. But you know, it could be something smaller in in your city that you may not have the budget for now, but ⁓ the wonderful thing about the budgets in in North American cities is is that they are pretty pretty malleable. And ⁓ there are some things that are way overfunded versus other things. And that can even be within the public transportation department. ⁓ you know, I I remember talking to folks at the Seattle Department of Transportation about filling potholes, and you know, they were pretty frank with me saying that there are too many miles of street for us to be able to completely like repair them. They're you know, there's like close to five thousand miles of streets in Seattle. That could be a a a a a pressure point. You know, you could look at, okay, well maybe we can redesign those streets. We can close them, you know, to car traffic. that takes away a budget it and a line item. We can maybe deprioritize ⁓ you know, different kinds of repair methods to ⁓ to put it toward transit. You know, there there's just lots of things to think about. And so that's an that's a really good place to start. And and that's why you should elect, you know, you should really fight at the city council level because ⁓ the legislature's always the people in control of the budget. Anna: circle back to a phrase you used earlier and I I I think it's a really interesting phrase, but this non-driver by default, ⁓ and what that means for you. And I guess like as we're embarking on this podcast project together, ⁓ what it means to be interviewing nondrivers and and really centering that perspective in this transportation and land use conversation. Devin: Hmm. I mean to be a non driver by default to me just means that ⁓ I never had a choice, right? Like ⁓ I wanted to drive many times in my life. I actually see these cool little ⁓ these cool little cars in Europe. They don't go more than 40 kilometers an hour and anyone can drive them. Even I can drive them. And I'm like, that seems, you know, do I want a car? Like that seems kind of cool. I can drive it. So I'm not like Anna: We said Devin: I'm not anti-car, and I think that's something that a lot of folks ⁓ who are in power kind of automatically assume is that you're anti-car. I think that a lot of people kind of lose their minds when they get behind the wheel of a car, but I I'm not anti-car, right? so I think that ⁓ in terms of like centering stories of people who are nondrivers by default, it's really people who who have no choice. And what we can do by centering those stories is give those leaders that we talked about, the ones who are willing to listen, or maybe someone out there in in this audience that we hope to grow who would want to run themselves, you know, give them the opportunity to point to folks and say, like, you know, these are the people that I'm talking about. They they're not against the idea of a car They're not ⁓ you know, some dude who has his like, you know, seven thousand dollar road bike that he pulls out and puts on the back of his forty-five thousand dollar car to go to a race. You know, they're they're people who are just trying to make ends meet. And this is a way that we can help them and and ⁓ and just like ⁓ with the city of Paris and the now former mayor Anidal Go when she was talking about Making cities for children. ⁓ if you can make a city work for a kid, it's gonna work for anybody. If you can make a city work for a non-driver, it's going to work for anybody. I think that's obviously the grandiose kind of hope, but I think that that's we could do our part ⁓ by having folks on the show to share their stories. Anna: Yeah. I mean, I'm really excited about this. Part of, you know, in in writing my first book, the best part of that was getting to travel and meet other nondrivers around the US and Canada for the most part, but you know, who've had this experience in in different sort of geographies, ⁓ in different, ⁓ definitely different economic and cultural situations, but ⁓ there's still so much in common and I think so much excitement around connecting to other people who can't and don't drive and having that ⁓ you know, shared experience, build a a s collective sense of of identity and power. ⁓ and I think that's ultimately how we begin to, you know, hold our our elected leaders accountable to building, you know, communities that work for their constituents because we are their constituents, right? So I'm excited about this. ⁓ I'm excited to launch this with you and we'll see, you know, the conversations we can have and maybe the the the community we can build. Devin: I'm very hopeful that we can build a community because I think one way to give people some home out there is is to hear you that they're not alone. And, you know, again, Anna, until I met you, I had never met anyone else in my life with nice Degmas. So ⁓ hopefully we can reach out to other folks too and you know, remind them that ⁓ it's it's tough, but they are not alone. Anna: And ultimately, I mean I I you know, this is sort of an edgy way to think about it, but ⁓ sort of drawing from the work of Alice Wong, who was a an amazing disability ad advocate ⁓ and and thinker in this space, she, you know, described disabled people in some ways as oracles, right? Oracles of the future, oracles of, you know, figuring out ways to to make life work, ⁓ in ways that the rest of of you know, everyone else can learn from. And so I I like to sort of ⁓ think of that in the transportation space, right? That like we ⁓ you know, as people who can't drive can help us are are probably the best positioned people to help us design a future with less driving, which is something that I think that many, many people want. Many people who currently drive and have to drive, ⁓ would prefer a future where they don't have to drive as much. Devin: That's a really wonderful way to put it, is that people with disabilities are oracles of the future. And and that's just the future we we have to fight for. So for ⁓ next week's episode I will I will be flipping ⁓ the camera over to Anna and then ⁓ also learning a little bit about about your life too. So that's really going to be quite an interesting episode. Anna: Stay tuned. Sounds good. See you next week, everyone. Thanks for listening to NonDriver. I'm Anna Zievarts. Devin: And I'm Devin Silvernail. If today's conversation resonated with you, please subscribe and share the show with a friend. Anna: You can also leave us a review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps other people find the show. Devin: Nondriver is brought to you by the NonDrivers Alliance. Find more info at nondrivers.org. Anna: And this episode was produced by Devon. Devin: Wanna get in touch? Email us at non driver podcast at proton dot me. Anna: We'll see you next week.