This post originally appeared in my Substack newsletter.
Lots of bike rides, a bit of transit, some walking, one taxi trip, and (gasp!) a drive at the very end of the very last day of the week. That’s what my Week Without Driving looked like.
Last week, a group of Ottawa organizations who focus on sustainable mobility invited residents to participate in the #weekwithoutdriving, a North American initiative to help “uncover new ways to make our transportation system more accessible and equitable by experiencing it firsthand”.
Organizers asked us to share experience during the week through pictures and video, and to reflect about the experience: Was it easy? Difficult? Why? What would need to change if you were not able to drive?
Some of my thoughts and observations:
1. A week without driving is not a big stretch for me. On a typical week, I would estimate at least 80% of my travel is without a car. I am fortunate to live very close to my office in Stittsville (<10 minutes by bike, <20 minutes walking), and I am within a 12-minute walk to three all-day OC Transpo routes.
2. The week Ottawa was perfect for cycling: warm, sunny, and dry. Rainy or cold weather would have complicated things. All of my cycling trips could have been replaced with bus or walking, but I would not have had the same level of flexibility or efficiency.
3. Strava tells me I biked over 125 kilometres over the week. These were almost all short trips, 2km-10km. The time for most of those short trips is comparable to driving a car.
4. I did one long recreational bike ride, from Stittsville to Highway 7 along the Trans Canada Trail. I rode past Doug, a familiar face in Stittsville. He’s an adult with a disability who gets around everywhere on his trike, always wearing a bright green safety vest. That trike gives him a tremendous amount of freedom and mobility, when the weather co-operates.
5. The OC Transpo route that I used the most was the 163, a new route launched in April that travels east-west through Stittsville and Kanata South. An incredibly useful route, going by community facilities, shopping, schools, and more.
6. My worst experience was an evening trip back from City Hall to Stittsville. Our committee meeting ran late and off-peak bus service, combined with LRT-related detours, made the commute back nearly two hours. It will be a lot faster once LRT opens to the west end, but that’s still 15-18 months away.
7. On Friday night my partner & I took Route 62 to a fundraising event in Kanata, which included a welcome autumn walk through leafy Beaverbrook on the way there.
8. We just missed the 62 home at the end of the evening (our fault, not OC Transpo’s), so instead of waiting 30 minutes for the next bus, we took an Uber. It cost $22, compared to $8 for two of us on the bus.
9. On Saturday we celebrated the “pre-opening” of Robert Grant Avenue, where we invited folks to leave their car at home and bike/walk/run/roll on the soon-to-be-opened street. It was my favourite day of the week with a few hundred people joining us. People will come out in droves if you build convenient, accessible, and safe infrastructure.
10. Over the course of the week I postponed one meeting in Blackburn Hamlet because it was just too far to travel without a car in a reasonable time frame. And I have some dry cleaning ready to pick-up that I put off to this week because it would have been impractical to carry it on my bike, and a pain on the bus.
11. The drive at the very end of the week was a last-minute request from my daughter for a drive home from work. With LRT offline for maintenance on the weekend, she was facing a long bus ride home versus a faster pick-up from me. All good.
Thanks to Bike Ottawa, Ecology Ottawa, For Our Kids Ottawa-Gatineau, Ottawa Transit Riders and Strong Towns Ottawa for encouraging Ottawa residents to take part.