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Stephen's Journey As a Dad, a Multimodal Engineer, and a Nondriver · nondriver

• Steven: Kids are one of the biggest transit advocates in the world. You take them on a bus or train and they're happy as as can be. Their their priorities don't involve time very often. so you know, they don't care if it takes an hour and a half. you know, you take on all of the mental stress of the schedule and they just get to live their best life sitting and looking around and and whatever on a on a bike, on a bike, bus train, whatever. Welcome to Nondriver. Real stories of navigating our world from people who can't drive. I'm Devin Silvernail. And I'm Anna Zivarts. And today we have another great guest, Steven Bartells Steven grew up in North Denver, spent much of his time in his early life figuring out how to get places on his own. he got his driver's license after college. And was later diagnosed with long sleeper syndrome, now understood as likely autism-related exhaustion. And in 2022, sold the family minivan, bought two cargo e-bikes. he and his family live car free in the Denver suburbs using cargo bikes for school runs, Costco trips, and demanding bike and express bus commute that has logged, I think Steven has now logged around 80,000 miles. On Strava, which is an achievement. Welcome, Steven. Yes, thank you. And one slight clarification, it is car light. We do still own a car. It just doesn't get used very much. Well, thanks for joining us this morning. And you are our we were just talking. You're our earliest earliest morning guest. We're recording this so Devin can do this in in France time. and I'm normally a morning person, but it's still a little dark on my end here in Seattle. So bright and early and my voice is a little still waking up. I want to hear a little bit more about that transition, Stephen, from being someone who, you know, you grew up driving. and driving was sort of, you know, a normal way for you to get around. And then that transition to sort of questioning whether that was the best way for you to safely navigate the world. You know, growing up, my the perception it was driving is how you get everywhere. and so I didn't really think anything of it. and then After college, I did get that first diagnosis, which really was clarifying because I was always falling asleep. And then in twenty eighteen, I think it was, I had re-rented somebody approaching a stoplight that that totaled the car we were in. No, no not a major crash, but it was an old enough vehicle that it totaled the car. And prior to that in college, during a road trip, I had driven off the off the road on I seventy, which was very interesting because as part of my job, the design of the median and recovering from departuring departing the road is part of my job. So that was very informative. But again, I still was looking at it through a lens of like, this is just how you get everywhere. I had learned at an early age how to use bike and transit as as my form of transportation. and it was just pretty obvious that like maybe, you know. Most people talk about falling asleep at the wheel in the abstract. or like, you know, driving tired is a bad idea is even lower than driving drunk is a bad idea. but people don't like similar to driving drunk, people don't acknowledge that they probably do it more than they they will admit. but of course I had a little more acute you know, s relationship with that. And so I was like, I don't know, maybe this isn't a good idea. So I had already started commuting by bike. I had a job briefly after college for less than a year that required a absolute ton of driving. and I had to call my wife or call my friend or call my dad, call somebody just to keep me myself awake. because I've fallen asleep hundreds of times at the wheel at this point. and so I had already started commuting, and then the cargo e-bikes are really what made it possible. as a family to do it as transportation because commuting by bike does not require picking up groceries. You know, it it requires a very discrete subset of of transportation need. whereas like living mostly without a car requires grocery stores and children moving and and all that. and so we we we were part of the Denver rebate at the time we were in the city of Denver and so we were able to get the highest level rebate for cargo e bikes and income qualified. and then that was that was what, you know, for me it was an easier entry point because I had already like bikes were already part of my life. and so that side of it was pretty easy. And then growing up, I had always learned how to do transit really well. you know, I had knew all the buses in my neighborhood. I've known every bus like within a one mile and a half to two miles. of my residence basically my whole life. and so that was relatively straightforward and then yeah and then it played directly into my professional life because I kept writing around and going, I don't know who's doing this work, but I think I could do a better job basically because I bring the perspective of the user more directly. but yeah that was and then you know it it was Very practical to begin with and and you know, hearing people's stories mine is one more practical perhaps. A lot of people have either they've already had that shift on the disability front and they haven't ever had the choice, or they've had something you know, more horrible happen. You know, nobody died in my crash. but those relationships with your car and what and and driving and How that changes is always very interesting to me because it's never the same. I have to say it's so cool to meet somebody who actually benefited from that rebate program. because we watched it from afar, right? In in Washington State. And I know in in Seattle that's something that we had been talking about wanting to copy. So that's that's awesome that you actually got to got to take advantage of that. And I was curious because you had mentioned that you have that user experience, right? And I I find it really interesting too because I think that there's a lot of professions, like obviously engineering related professions, but others that take design into or where design is really necessary and a lot of times that users aren't considered. I mean, I'm I'm married to a designer and so I hear about that a lot. I'm curious, you know, with your colleagues and in your profession as well, do you find that there are many people that are also coming from that perspective, or is it still a pretty small number of folks? Well, so the good news is I now work for the city of Boulder. so that that has been a very specific change for toward that. right. So if I see a helmet in the office now, I might I might not know who they are. for everywhere else in my career, if I see a helmet at the office, I know who that is. Don't worry. at my last two workplaces, you know, I would show up on my first day and be like, okay, where am I gonna park my bike? And they're like, I don't know. There's like a bike rack in the parking garage, right? I'm like, Nope, that's not okay. so like It's pretty rare, but now that I work for the city of Boulder, it's almost everyone. right. So like I have other people I'm time blind, massively so. And so I have coworkers who are like, Hey, like, you know, time check, do you need to leave for your bus? Right. Like that is unheard of in my career previously. you know, and then I started at jobs and then by the time I left You know, I was started as the only one riding to work and then by the time I left a bunch more are I f you know kind of fought for EcoPass at multiple employers. Thankfully I'm now at the employer that actually started EcoPass. I did not know that until I started working there at the City Boulder apparently started the RTD EcoPass program. Tell us more what is that? So EcoPass very simply is an employer purchased it's a program through RTD where the employer has to purchase a pass for every single employee. for their system. And it's every everything on the system, which of course is way more on the system than people realize. but yeah, so I get to have R T D and it's already paid for. which is great because now I can just, you know, take the bus. Do you want to tell us about so I your commute? 'Cause I it's pretty intense compared, I think, to a lot of people think about bike commuting. Maybe they think about, you know, two miles, five miles, eight miles into the office. You have had some pretty epic commutes. Okay. so when I started bike commuting, was it would have been twenty fourteen and I had about an eight and a half mile commute. That w that commute it ch kind of evolved through the years. Up and down, up to thirteen and a half is I think the longest. but it was all bike only. and now when I commute, my commute is hybrid. and when I took this job, I never thought I would be taking j commute this long. I have my own like breakdown of why I have a perfectly time or like perfect length for a commute. But currently I live in North Lakewood, so we're gonna draw a bit of a triangle in our heads here. We I live in North Lakewood, which is halfway between Golden and Denver. you know, downtown Golden, downtown Denver. I ride to Denver, which is about six miles. and then I hop on a bus, an express bus up to Boulder. technically I get off the bus a little early and then ride through the city. it gets me there in the same amount of time. and then on my way home, I pick up a different bus, the GS that goes south to Golden. where I get off in golden and then ride nine miles home, or I can actually stay on it longer and ride two and a half miles home. But the nine miles is no stoplights, no stop signs. Well, no not no stop signs, but no stoplights. quite nice ride. so it's about eighty minutes door to door each direction, despite being entire one hundred percent different routes with prevailing tailwinds and downhill, which is great. And actually I got a guy who this is really awesome. It was just Peak like transit is superior form of transit transportation. I'd seen him on the bus that week on my morning bus and I was waiting for the bus in the afternoon and I saw him waiting at the same gate because this the F F F two that I use in the morning uses the same gate as the GS in the afternoon. And I was like, where are you going? I'm guessing you're waiting for the F F two. I'm not. and I actually got him to take the same bus as me because he ends up having a very similar route. only he was using the W line. the light rail line to get between union and his place. And it turns out that the GS also accesses the W and we'll have roughly the same amount of time. He was only using it for a week or two because his car is out of commission. but it was really cool talking to him and kind of hearing his experience as well. So one thing we chatted about last time we were chatting was sort of, you know, the the housing pressures and I you know Boulder I think is known for being this idelic place, right? Where there's bike lanes everywhere and you know everyone bikes to work. Isn't that lovely? it's also known right as being an incredibly expensive place to live. And sort of that that trade off between access and housing and how that plays out in your life. So I've always done a fairly strong and thorough land use analysis around where I live. And unfortunately the well, fortunately or unfortunately, we're actually about to move over the next month to South Golden. It's funny 'cause I Now work for the city boulder. Everybody knows that I started working for the city of Boulder in November. They're you're moving to Boulder. And I was like, well, actually, I'm moving to Golden. And they're like, how does that make sense? well, our rent is also going up by like what 40% or so to do this. and so I'm fortunate that I can barely afford it. but that's still to live a 50-minute bus ride from Boulder. Now you can live closer to Boulder for less money, but this is also half a mile from my kids' school. but like my where I live is always well informed by either the transit now the transit more, which is somewhat of a complicated thing because I'm doing it to have transit to work. Well, unfortunately, or for you know, for whatever it's worth, my transit to and from work will be pr frankly as good as I could ask for. Nearly door to door service. on a coach bus, right? Like that's pretty great. however, our total transit access will be not good. we'll have well we will have a bus that's gonna run close to us. but to get to downtown Denver for, you know, any event would take like I think I want to say an hour ten. whereas I could am not using the W line because to get to the W line like we have kids now so that that complicates the equation. We can't just like, well, I'll bike to the train station and take the train. Well, there's no cargo bike share. so like I could bike to the train station and then get off and then walk if we c park the cargo bikes. We have a bus that's a local bus that doesn't go all the way to downtown. You got to transfer, etc, etc. So like we'll have better transit access for my work and worse transit access for most other things. and that that's on the transit side and on the bike side have always been like, okay, how am I getting anywhere on a bike? because there's still plenty of areas in the Den Greater Denver Metro that aren't that accessible by bike. that are big old vacuums where you're trapped by a bunch of facilities that are you know dangerous to cross or ride along. but that's always been part of it. And you know I've been rent chasing low low key rent chasing Since graduating college. So this'll be, I don't know, our fifth or sixth move. since I grew you know, my wife and I have we were married right after caug my college. She was still in college. So, you know, we've moved a lot. have yet to live in a place for five years. and that's in part because of rent. That's in large part because of rent. But then also, we choose to live in a place that we can make it work, and our threshold for making it work is our threshold and has no bearing on other people's threshold. which is relevant because, you know, I like to say that I make choices that I don't really expect almost anyone else to. 'cause they, you know, most people wouldn't bike as much as even we do, 'cause right now it's a five mile ride want and way to school. No but like there are very few people that are gonna sign up for that. though they're not zero. I'm curious, like in this new place that you're looking at that is gonna have better access for work, but kind of worse access for a lot of other things, what would your average grocery run look like? Or like let's say if you wanted to go to to hang out at a park or something like that, how how does that look? Are you hopping on the cargo bike? Are you able to walk? Almost certainly gonna involve cargo bikes. so the the advantage I would the advantage. The reality I face is like we've already attuned very strongly. So we index hard into bikes. right, like where we are now, like riding to downtown and back is six and a half miles to downtown Denver and back. Which for us, because we've already done it a lot, is not that big of a deal. where we're gonna move to is not very ped friendly, admittedly. we can access you know, a decent little soccer field by foot we will be able to go to the grocery store and it won't be very far away, but we would still take the cargo bike. and ultimately the the kids are gonna dictate a lot of that, because we're bringing them or and or their stuff, and or their degree of comfort, right? So or their degree of comfort with their bike or our degree of comfort with them riding their bike. because even still where we're going, like The road we're gonna live a block off of, I I don't really want my kid riding on on. Not like not even close. So yeah, we'll be using the cargo bike for most everything. Certainly to go to the grocery store. It'll only be like a mile away. I will likely I don't use a cargo bike to go to work because I have to take it on the bus. But I'll likely still bike because I'll I need to ride around Boulder for my job. but yeah, the grocery store run will be cargo bike. The fe you know, the local park or whatever will likely still be cargo bike more often than not because we'll want to go to something with more than just a soccer field. but, you know, already Marie is my wife and she's looked at like, going to the children's museum is something we do now, where we would bike, of course, because we're already used to that. but because we don't have a cargo bike share and the distance to the children's museum will we'll just say double roughly. It's not gonna be tenable, but taking transit there is even less tenable. So like going to the Botanic Gardens might take an hour and a half or whatever, with two bus transfers, but that is more accessible b than the children's museum now because that's just far enough, you know, it's far enough away that that the biking only is is a stretch. It's so stressful the like combining Kids with transit with biking, right? It just really isn't set up. That the you know, like inability to to combine cargo biking with things unless you're willing to lock up your cargo bike somewhere and then you can't use it on the other end. And you know, it's funny because here in Seattle, you're I don't know, I it I guess you're technically allowed to bring cargo bikes on the light rail now. You weren't for a while. But since we opened our our second line, it the light rail's been really crowded, which is wonderful. But it's so crowded to the point where I'm like, I actually don't think I should bring our cargo bike. We have a a long tail onto onto the train. And so it just it really does. You start to be like, okay, how is this gonna work? I can't chip train trip chain as well as I used to. And with buses, right? There's no way the cargo bike's going on a bus. So yeah. What what are some of the things that you think about when traveling with kids? I don't know, I it remind me how old your kids are, roughly, and like how do they feel about This using other forms of transportation, especially in the winter. Nine, six, and four. Denver does get cold though. This last winter barely existed. so man. I would love t for them to tell you that, but you'd never get it a a very quick answer anyway. You might not get a quick answer from me anyway, but they definitely prefer the bike. They love transit. I mean, are you like Kids are one of the biggest transit advocates in the world. You take them on a bus or train and they're happy as as can be. Their their priorities don't involve time very often. so you know, they don't care if it takes an hour and a half. you know, you take on all of the mental stress of the schedule and they just get to live their best life sitting and looking around and and whatever on a on a bike on a bike, bus train, whatever. they definitely prefer the bike, generally speaking. Every once in a while they would prefer the car. we have a rain cover for the box bike that definitely makes it easier in the winter. That definitely keeps a lot of h heat in. but we I mean we still do have the car that we drive when it's worse conditions or you know, very cold. again, back to the transportation type use and user. I'm willing to commute in ten degrees, but riding to church in ten degrees is probably just not gonna happen. even if the commute is thirteen miles and the ride to church is two. So that's still a reality. That doesn't change magically. so they they love the but we we just don't have like the bus d does very little to nothing for us right now. So them they don't get to ride the bus that often. But like I can take my oldest. He's nine so he he can ride there's still a you know Some discretion on which facilities I'm willing to take him on. But like I rode with him to downtown after church one day and then rode the bus to Boulder and back and then took the train to close to our house so we could again where schedule is irrelevant. and and he loved it. Of course he did. you know, one thing that I've been meaning to do that I haven't yet is just carve out a Saturday and just ride the bus all day long with the kids because they they just love it, right? Like they don't get back. I mean they can get they still can get bored, right? Any kid can get bored on anything. But there's just so much to look at and so much to do and and people to see and and whatever. It's it's just so so much more interactive. and a car just isn't. and and they don't necessarily see it in those terms, but you can see it in their faces when when you're talking to them or interacting with them, or like riding home from school in a bike is more regulating than riding home from school in a car. you know, something that, you know, I I it's probably partially parroting, of course, but they're like, Yeah, you can feel the wind in your face. and smell and see things. so yeah, they they definitely prefer the non car modes most of the time. Every once in a while they would rather take the car, but that's usually gonna be their being extra grumpy and or just the weather's really poor. But even which bike they want changes. Like 'cause we have a turn HSD and a and a and then a box bike as well. And yeah, like which bike they want changes date, you know, hour to hour. I mean minute by minute. They can say one one minute that they want to be in one bike and then by the time we have to leave, they've switched their they you know, changed my their mind. I love that. I mean that feel like I hits home so so much, just that la even that last bit, like my kid, she just she's six. graduated right from like the two league yep to like a more big kid seat on my wife's bike. And for most of her life she's been riding in my box bike and now like has no interest in it. speaker-2: You Steven: I love that. And you know, it's so cool too because you you talk about this. I mean you've been doing this long enough in your kids' life too that we have to remember like for us, we kind of had no choice but to be in the backseat you know. being shuffled around everywhere and like seeing the world for th through their eyes is really interesting because I mean I'm sure for them, if you were to ask your kids what it boils down to is, yeah, I mean, I you know, this is just my life. We we just we take the bus and we bike. And I think that shows the res like not just the resilience of kids, but it also shows that I think that's a very good example of anywhere in the world how that can work. And even if you're working now living in a place where it it's twice as long to get to the children's museum. Like you said, they don't care about time. So I think that's a really interesting like seeing the the world through their eyes. That's that's so cool. I want to ask you a little more about your experience growing up. So you said you, you know, you knew transit and I'm I feel like that's sort of unique. yeah, it's or it's not that common in the US. many of us grew up in in places or with families that were not, you know, encouraging of transit use. What was that like do you think that influenced you? D is that why you became a transportation engineer? No, and and it's very interesting. because again, when I talk in the so I I live in this funny little like world where I'm an advocate, a user, and a designer for both bike and tr and bus transportation. and most people that are as acutely advocating for this stuff, within my industry, like kind of started that way. I didn't. I started in highways and then eventually, you know, switched. and the the the reasons were a lot different. and that's so so I grew up in Denver. Both my parents grew up with access and regular use of the of the metro in New York City, right? and I would visit every summer. So I was already familiar with the the metro in New York City. and we would go to the ball game. There was a the sixth bus at the time. The route is completely different now. but the six would get us straight between our house and course field here in Dever. speaker-1: And so. Steven: I'd already been taught that regularly. I got to my middle school by public transit because I was outside of any kind of busing. I was also in a charter school, so busing wasn't even necessarily an option. Or I rode to a different one, which was only I think three and a half, I wanna say miles away, which of course I realized later in life that you know, something that felt really long as a you know, ten year old that feels like absolutely nothing as an adult. But yeah, I grew up knowing transit. I think the only places where you know transit as a kid are gonna be places like New York City where it's just so incredibly accessible. I it was influenced by my parents. But that was never why I got into the industry. it really, really, really wasn't, oddly enough. I kind of fell into it. I wanted to be a civil engineer, I wanted to do bridges, couldn't get a job, eventually got a job on in transportation and really enjoyed it. And then, you know, evolved after most of a decade working in highways, low key morally opposed to my own job and and switched, which in and of itself is not necessarily easy. But Yeah, I I understood transit and I understood what it looked like to look through the eyes of a bicycle. My dad, when he moved to Colorado in the eighties, he moved to Boulder and rode a bike primarily. my again, my parents were used to the New York City transit system. and the and the the New York City transit system of yesteryear when buses were still much less usable than they are now. but yeah, like it was definitely unique. I I was I was in a position Where at nine years old I was confident riding RTD alone, to get with transfers and everything to get wherever I needed to go. and that was unique. And then for the four years I lived in Ohio, I just didn't go anywhere, unless I was going with people that could also drive, because I was in rural Ohio. So I tried biking. No shoulder state highways, blind tur Blind corners, either vertical or horizontal. It it's suicide. But yeah, that was always my perspective, but it was one born more out of practicality than it was the principle of it, which was just interesting because, you know, I kind of fell into that alignment with my with my profession rather than choosing my profession, you know, informed by that. I mean, it's kinda funny that you talk about your p you know, you have these two New Yorker parents. And I was curious about that too, because honestly I don't I mean personally I've been in I was telling Anna before this, I've been to Denver one time, for the conference several years ago and was in the downtown core and thought it was great, right? Like you have the I think the pedestrian and in in bike transit mall and you have plenty of bike infrastructure. You have the streetcar, light rail, like it that's wonderful. And But it still sounds like you kinda got the typical American kid experience, right? You were saying that at nine years old it was pretty it's pretty uncommon for a kid to know how to take the bus on their own. D do you feel though like there is a a bit of maybe that that Denverness or that or you know, something about that as well that makes that makes you want to go You know, like you said, maybe go out of the comfort zone that a lot of other people might have. Do you think that is inherent to you the city that you live in? Or that's just more kind of your personality? It's certainly partially my personality. or or my fun concoction of a brain. so I am both autistic and ADHD. and so for me, it's just I I really can't understand people's love of cars. Like I can't. I just don't understand it. Like The cognitive load, the stress of it, the all of that. Like I can get on a bus, which I love to complain about RTD just as much as the next person, but also they're still mostly on time and I'm taking routes that are longer. I can get on a bus, do literally whatever I want. You know, like driving, you can't do that. You have to worry about all these other people. And then, you know, I stare out the window of a bus and see all the people on their phones. I'm like, I don't know how anybody feels safe. driving at all, but I'm the one who's crazy for riding my bike in the snow. Yeah, I don't know. I I am willing to do things that not many people are willing to do, and that statement is just true across most aspects of my life. but I will also offer that like access to it certainly is a lower bar when trying to conv like encourage other other people to try it. our weather is pretty pretty much idyllic. if you look across the US, it's hard to argue that another city has better weather. For transit outside of perhaps San Francisco. and that you know, we ha people are like, What about when it snows? And I was like, Are you kidding me? Have you lived in a snow c city? The real snow cities, it snows and then it doesn't leave. Ours like, it snows and is gone. You can ride like if it's not too much snow, that afternoon. If it's a bunch of snow, like three days later. and so that's on the bike front. On the transit front. I I grew up with that just so well ingrained into me that like I I love transit. You know, I love the quirks of transit. people are you know that one of the biggest things I hear about is, you know, man, there's the the homeless people are drug dealers or whatever on the on the bike bus. And I was like, there's also a whole lot of other people on the bus that you've never you don't even know exist, right? bus drivers are one of the coolest parts of humanity. and I I grew up with that. You know, like teaching bus safety to a kid, like part of that at the time, you're no longer technically allowed to talk to a bus driver while the bus is moving. But like part of that as a kid was like you sit at the front of the bus, you talk to a bus driver. That's a great way to say safe. but then also like you interact with a whole bunch of people and there's community on the bus, and there's community when biking. even if it's not direct community, like I talked to the guy who was had his car out or There's another guy who I'm gonna end up with the same commute as him because I'm gonna move and use the same bus at almost the same bus stops, both directions and headways. and so you know, like those things happen and I love it. I d but like those are things that I already understood existed, and most people if they don't come from that position, they don't even see that as valuable. I wanna touch on on safety, especially like safety from car crashes. Cause I think that's something that, especially as a parent, weighs on my, you know, mind quite a bit. We had a a teacher at my kids' school actually killed last week biking home from school. And it's something I've been thinking a lot about because there was a, you know, a ghost, a ghost bike installation. And I was like, do I bring my kid to this? Right now, he hasn't really conceptualized how dangerous biking can be and some of the risk that we are exposed to because of that. And I don't really want him to think about that yet. Because I I want him to love biking. But at the same time, it's something that weighs on me constantly as a parent. You know, you you can choose the risk you're exposing yourself to. but, you know, when you're you're also exposing a kid and whether it's biking or even just, you know, sometimes crossing some of these arterioles, getting to a bus stop, walking, it feels yeah. I mean it's it's yeah, that that that Design is just not set up for you. How do you yeah, how do you square that in your head? I always like to start such conversations by saying in the driving world, you have accepted way more risks than you think. Like way, way more. It is just less apparent because you have Nisha and a crash cage. so that we'll just say that and and leave it. but man, safety for me and my kids. Where to start? right, like which route I'm willing to take with them riding is different from the route I'm willing to take with them riding on my bike, which is can be different from which route I would take by myself on my road bike in Lycra. and to your very point, no is not something I want them thinking about directly, but I need them to think about it. like that is non negoti like. You know, I I prop I I'm not gonna claim to have all the all the most perfect answers because I am who I am and that that's different from everybody else. But like teaching kids that like inherently parking lots are one of the most dangerous places for a kid walking or biking. Like just assume that they're not going to see you. or teaching them, you know, I I as a transportation engineer have a very thorough analysis of like every intersection I go through. from my lens, from my perspective, right? I'm not gonna teach them to look at it the same way I do, but I am gonna teach them the the different ways of looking at the the highest risk areas. because I have to because like otherwise that like I like I have to. and they're going to see that and and I'm gonna say look like watch we don't know where they're gonna go and we have to say that out loud. because otherwise like Yeah, their brains are still developing. They can't take in all the information and process all the information that you and I can. but they also need to beat, just like every other thing in parenting, you have to just start start beating that drum. You know, you can do it while they're riding on the bike and they're not making any decisions. and then you as they're getting older, you can start doing it with them on safer intersections or even the less safe intersections, you do extra you take extra precautions. Hey, we're gonna go on the sidewalk here because this is gonna be safer. And why is it safer? But then also why is it do we have to treat it differently because of how people interact with crosswalks, et cetera, et cetera? so it's very real. and it's, I don't know, infinitely complex because there is no single answer to how to approach that. because the ch answer changes from a path to a road, from any given road to another road, from one neighborhood to the next. And what is the risk type? What is the magnitude of the risk? I think about all those things. The kid doesn't. and the kid kind of can't. but also we have to start teaching them. so no, I don't want them thinking about it, but also you know, how they think about it can be molded a little bit, right? and I'm sorry to hear about the teacher. I don't want to gloss past that too quickly because People look at a lot of deaths and don't really think about it. I don't know. Feel like I feel like we should more because we're willing to take a lot of other deaths and think about them. But when it comes to tra traffic deaths, it feels more like the cost of doing business than than anything. And I, you know, that how I talk about it and how I teach my kids is very similar, right? Like cars require responsibility, right? Like, so even from that perspective, it's not that driving is bad. It's still gonna be necessary at some degree, maybe not for everyone, certainly not for everyone. but even if if I even if my kid ends up driving, when my kids end up driving in in whenever however many years, I'm going to have been beating the drum that like you carry a lot of responsibility driving a heavy vehicle. Right? and that relationship doesn't change whether you're in the bike or the car, it just changes where you're you know, what responsibility you have right now and who is or isn't accepting it. Steven, what gives you hope in your work and, you know, I mean working in like Boulder is sort of this beacon of hope, but you're working in a much bigger, you know, sort of regional and living in a in a region that is, you know, still pretty car centric. My my biggest thing that gives me hope for Boulder is the level of investment in ac in access is Is higher than most places I have worked. Not just for biking, not just for you know a transit or whatever. It is like top to bottom. You have people in the field, you have people in operations, you have people in capital projects, you have PD, you have the college. Everyone still wants better bike pet infrastructure. They all have different reasons for it. But they do. and that gives me more hope because historically, my interaction with that. sequence of of bodies that I just represent you know, spoke to represent isn't necessarily or isn't very much so, right? getting good ped ramp design In other places, I will not name them for for you know kindness reasons, designing a good ped ramp is a waste of time. and thankfully in Colorado that's not the case. it still has its own sets of challenges, but you know, the the the degree to which I see our field staff, our implementation, our implement our ground level people that are living with the decisions I'm making, right? they're more okay with that not just okay with it, like they they're like curious about the right answer, whereas other places they just are like, okay, whatever. or could be that way. that's probably the biggest thing that gives me hope in Boulder. what gives me hope in Denver, in Lakewood, and there's a lot that doesn't. but I went to during the comp plan update, I was part of the focus group for green infrastruct green infrastructure and transportation. And there was a whole lot of bike. PED transit advocacy within that focus group. And it was not a group of advocates, right? They, you know, try tried to get a representative distribution. and there was a lot more desire for bike ped transfer transportation. pointed infrastructure than than frankly I was expecting. so that gives me hope. Yeah. It's it's there's definitely days that it's harder, but it there's a lot of days where it's like, no, like listening to a different guy on the bus, the guy that I'm gonna have the similar similar thing, and he's like, yeah, I would be interested to know more about how can I go backpacking using the bus. And I was like, well I can tell you, because I've done that. you know and he hearing that there's desire for that from from average people, right? Because it's easy to end up in our in our in our realms of influence and our our comfortable spaces are gonna, you know, I'm sure Anna, you can relate, you know, like they're all the same people or same same song that all want the same thing or similar things. so when I'm not in that scene, it's nice to hear. that that's usually the biggest beacons of hope is when it's not like it's not the person that bikes every day. Or, you know, it's not the person that shows up to Bicycle Colorado events or, you know, is in Denver Transit various advocacy groups. It's just the person. the person on the bus, the person on the side the street, the the the teacher at the school, the you know, whatever. you know, it's it's funny because my kids' teacher this year actually has the opposite commute. She comes from South Boulder to Golden. but the G the bus I use doesn't at all work for her because of h just the timing. and and so hearing hearing those stories is what gives me the most hope. and honestly talking to frankly people like you, people other people in my industry that are interested in doing this better give me a lot more hope. because that means that that I I don't feel so alone. I felt alone a lot in my career like caring about this stuff. And you know, it's it's funny that you have me on this podcast because I didn't identify as a non driver until your session at APVP. because you like framed it up in a way and and you know like again, even that going back to the kind of the top of this this interview, like I never identified that way because it's like, well, no, like I can I have a driver's license, I can drive, I do drive, but like I really don't want to. And I don't want to in ways that are you know, it's still I was still thinking of myself as a choice non driver, but functionally I really never have been. you know, I've been a forced to drive than speaker-1: Right. Steven: a you know, it's a good idea or any other form. and that's yeah, like You you for you framed it up at that at that thing, and I was like, I guess I kind of am really a non-driver. and then you also built space for it to to be a flexible definition. because I think that that's something I would encourage a lot of people to think about because even myself, who had been living it my whole life, and at that time I wasn't diagnosed with autism, still was like, that must be somebody else like, but they they legally can't hold a driver's license. So like, you know, I'm not that, right? and I think that that's a healthy way of looking at it because then you can start seeing A, there's more ability to relate, right? even if you aren't a non driver, you can be like, there are days that I really wish I couldn't drive or I really wish I didn't drive. It's like that that's we're gonna build space for that. and that can give me hope. Because then there's relationships with people who do always drive. Like it's not supposed to I'm not trying to make it antagonistic. but they can see and understand those things, if they can relate to it at all. And so kind of reframing some of those conversations could be very helpful for that. So yeah. Thank you. That's cool to hear. Yeah, no, and that it does create space where it's like, no, we we can you don't have to identify as disabled, you don't have to, you know, not have a license, right? That it can be this broader and more flexible definition that builds a broader and more flexible coalition in some ways, right? To to start to ask for other things. Thanks so much for joining us. Yes, thank you. Thanks for listening to Nondriver. I'm Anna Zivarts. And I'm Devin Silvernail. If today's conversation resonated with you, Please subscribe and share the show with a friend. You can also leave us a review wherever you listen. It genuinely helps other people find the show.org. And this episode was produced by Devin. Want to get in touch? Email us at non driverpodcast at proton.me. We'll see you next week.