National Week With[out] Driving

This week, thanks to motivation from Bike Durham, I am participating in the first National Week Without Driving, a movement that encourages participants to reflect on what it's like to navigate the world without the privilege of being able to drive a car.

Before I get to how this week is going, here's some background.

I have spent the past two years seriously upping my walking game and intentionally avoiding driving. You can read more about that here.

It's a privilege to live in a neighborhood where my needs can generally be met within walking distance--although my definition of "within walking distance" has expanded over the past two years. Now, it generally means less than 10 miles round trip (15 miles on occasion if absolutely necessary and if I have the time). Distances greater than that often mean either skipping the trip or combining a drive with other errands so at least I'm maximizing bang for the carbon-footprint buck.

Where do I need to go to meet my needs?

I have two paid jobs. I'm a potter/pottery instructor, and I'm a science-writing consultant/instructor. Usually I get to and from those jobs by foot.

It's a few yards from my front door to my home studio; 2.77 miles (quickest route) to the community studio where I teach; and 3.5 miles (more leisurely route) home. Usually I walk. I drive to the community studio when I need to purchase clay, and I time those trips to coincide with other errands that require driving. I usually teach during the day. If I sub for nighttime classes, I drive.

It's zero miles to my laptop for Zoom consultations, and 3.5 miles to and from campus on days I work with writers in person. Usually I walk. I typically give two out-of-town writing workshops annually that require traveling by plane. One of those workshops--ha--is later this week.

It's about 2 miles each way to the food co-op and about 3 miles each way to Costco. I've learned how much I can carry in my 27-liter backpack and shop accordingly.

I usually drive or fly to visit family and for vacations. My son, E, is a student at NC State. When he takes the bus home to visit his doting parents (45-100 minutes one way to the downtown Durham bus station, depending on time of day and day of week, plus a 25 minute walk home), we'll usually drive him back to school (60 minutes round trip).

Now on to how this week is going...

Monday was an atypical workday, but an expected part of my seasonal work cycle. I was in Zoom meetings almost continuously from 8:30am until 5:30pm. I had a short break for lunch, and 1.5 hour break in the afternoon, when I worked in my studio. I had no time for walking (bad), and no need to drive (good).

On Tuesday, I worked from home in the morning. In the evening, I was scheduled to give a demo presentation for the Triangle Potters Guild.

I live in Durham; the Guild meets 26 miles away in Raleigh. The distance is not walkable. (Obviously, of course, but don't laugh! Figuring out a way to walk all the way to NC State has been on my recreational to-do list for a while. But even if I could split the walk into two days--it's 26 miles by car, but would be farther on foot--I have yet to find a route that anyone in their right mind would consider safe. Urban sprawl is designed for cars, not pedestrians.)

For the Week Without Driving, I needed to aim for alternatives to driving to Raleigh myself.

First option: mass transit. You'd think that with an international airport between Durham and Raleigh, we'd have easy mass transit options. We don't. We have no light rail, and taking the bus point-to-point would require at least two hours in each direction. Add in having to transport a heavy, awkward load of clay, tools, and pots: taking the bus becomes unfeasible.

Second option: Uber. Hiring a ride would have cost me ~$70-$120 or more round trip, depending on the time of day, and would have been worse for the environment than driving myself. My own car was waiting in my driveway, while an Uber driver would have had to drive to my house to pick me up.

Third option: ask a friend to take 4.5 hours out of their day to chauffeur me. Wasn't gonna happen.

So I drove.

To make the trip more productive, I combined it with three other objectives: picking up Durham Pottery Tour postcards at another potter's studio on the south side of Durham; stopping at Umstead State Park to fit in an out-of-town walk; and having dinner with E before the demo presentation.

Rush hour meant a lot of waiting in long lines of traffic...

What I gained from driving to Raleigh--other than getting to Raleigh with 35 pounds of stuff--was empathy for folks who have to commute every day, and irritation that this part of the country is not set up for alternatives. As an avid walker, I'm already intimately familiar with the lack of alternatives, since the lack limits my options for destinations, but having to drive yesterday certainly reinforced the point. We need alternatives.

My errand to pick up postcards added 20 minutes to my trip. From there, getting to Umstead State Park--which is directly en route to Raleigh--took an unusually long 30 minutes, thanks to heavy traffic and slow-downs caused by two different crashes. This left me less time to walk than I had intended.

Pretty, but traffic congestion en route left me with no time to linger.

Getting to NC State then took another 20 minutes due to rush-hour congestion, leaving me with less time than originally planned for dinner with E. He ended up driving with me to the Craft Center and then took a campus bus back to his apartment (hooray for NCSU's campus bus network!). Driving home after the Triangle Potters Guild meeting took a mere 30 minutes.

Total driving time so far this week: ~2 hours. Via [non-feasible] bus, it would have taken at least 4 hours, and I would have arrived home around midnight instead 10:15pm.

I immensely enjoyed meeting members of the Triangle Potters' Guild, discussing my work, and demonstrating one of my wheel-throwing processes. The experience was energizing and engaging and fun, and I'd love to attend more meetings--but that opportunity will only be possible if I drive (or find another potter to commute with from Durham).

Today, Wednesday, has been another work-at-home day. I took a break to walk downtown for an errand, and I will walk to the Co-op this evening to pick up some groceries.