TARTA promotes National Week Without Driving Challenge

When Tim Tegge accepted a job offer from the Sight Center of Northwest Ohio, the legally blind Bowling Green resident hadn’t considered how he was going to commute to the agency’s Toledo offices.

Fortunately a neighbor referred him to a third person who worked at the Area Office on Aging of Northwest Ohio and has provided his regular ride to and from work for the nine years since then.

A vast number of the Sight Center’s clients don’t drive, and many depend on public transportation to get around, Mr. Tegge said Tuesday morning during a Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority news conference announcing a new effort to promote transit ridership and awareness, the National Week Without Driving Challenge.

Laura Koprowski, TARTA’s chief executive officer, said agency officials learned about the campaign, which encourages people to park their cars for a up to a week and explore other ways to get around, at a transit convention last spring and decided to bring it to Toledo.

This year’s National Week Without Driving, coordinated by the America Walks advocacy group, is scheduled for Sept. 30 through Oct. 6.

Ms. Koprowski said she hopes the campaign will give that extra nudge to Toledoans who have been thinking about trying transit — perhaps in conjunction with bicycling — as an alternative to the solo-driver commute.

“This could be a great motivator to give it a try,” she said. “Be bold and go for the whole week, or just try one trip.”

But besides its potential to introduce motorists to driving alternatives, the campaign’s intent is to call attention to the mobility obstacles people who don’t drive face.

“We want those who have the option to drive regularly to understand the barriers and challenges that nondrivers face when trying to move safely in their communities and work with nondrivers to create better communities for all,” America Walks, based in Seattle, states on a Week Without Driving page on its website.

After starting out in its home area, America Walks began promoting the special week as a national event last year. A sign-up sheet is available on the Week Without Driving page, which can be found under the Advocacy tab on its homepage.

According to TARTA, 30 percent of American adults do not have driver’s licenses. Besides people of all ages whose disabilities prevent them from taking the wheel, they include seniors with physical limitations, people who can’t afford it, and even some who choose not to drive.

The automobile is an important part of Toledo’s heritage and its future, City Councilman Mac Driscoll said, “but when we design our cities so people can only drive, we leave a lot of people behind.”

Mr. Driscoll said he plans to “try out a couple new routes” during the no-driving week, noting particularly that combination bicycle-bus commutes are made easy by the bike racks on the fronts of TARTA buses.

Gary Gonya, director of marketing and communications for the Toledo Museum of Art, said that when he moved back to Toledo about three years ago, he “very intently chose a place to live that would allow me a bus-first commute,” which in conjunction with bicycling puts him better in touch with the art museum’s surrounding community.

And Justin Moor, president of the Area Office on Aging, said that the average person outlives their ability to drive by about three years, but few plan ahead for that condition.

“Cabs, Lyft, and Uber can get really expensive really quick,” he said. “... High quality public transportation makes for an age-friendly community.”

Also speaking during Tuesday’s news conference was Jennifer Seibel, an administrator at Leading Families Home who as a “nondriver by choice” has ridden TARTA regularly since 2019 and is on the agency’s Customer Advisory Committee.

“Having safe, reliable transportation is imperative,” she said, adding that the bus drivers “really notice their riders” and observe when they’ve been absent or request an out-of-routine stop.

And Ms. Koprowski, who often uses TARTA for her own commute, said her 19-year-old son who “doesn’t have a lot of extra money” has elected to forgo driving for the time being.

“He can spend it on gaming, not on gas,” she said.

Mr. Tegge, executive director of the Sight Center, said he’s had “fabulous conversations in the passenger seat” during his nine years of commuting. But he said it also “would be awesome” if any of the occasional discussions about creating a transit connection between metro Toledo and Bowling Green bore fruit because that would at least provide a fallback.

“I feel very blessed that I have eight people who let me ride with them,” he said before remarking that “it’s always in the back of my mind” what the alternatives might be if his regular ride isn’t available.