Week Without Driving was originally launched by the Disability Mobility Initiative (a program of Disability Rights Washington) under Anna Zivarts. In 2023, America Walks stepped in to organize the initiative nationally, and today it is led by the Non-Drivers Alliance.

The effort isn’t about shaming drivers or demanding everyone abandon their vehicles forever. Instead, it serves as a tool for experiential learning, reflection, and policy change built on three core principles:

• Dignity & Access to Life: Everyone deserves the freedom to travel safely where they need and want to go.
• Equitable Transportation: Those who walk, roll, cycle, or take public transit every day are the real experts on gaps in local infrastructure.
• Justice: Mobility barriers disproportionately impact low-income individuals, communities of color, and people with disabilities.

From Experience to Advocacy: Why Storytelling Matters

A central takeaway from Ruth’s presentation is that transport network gaps become glaringly obvious the moment you step out of a personal vehicle. While transportation discourse often separates walking, biking, and transit, the lived reality of a non-driver intersects with nearly every aspect of civic life—housing, health care, and climate action.

Uncovering Hidden Needs

When decision-makers experience transit firsthand, policy priorities shift. Ruth shared an instance where a city council member invited a mayor on a bus ride along during Week Without Driving:

“The mayor went, and they missed the bus. They were late to the City Council meeting, but in that, the mayor also got sunburnt. The mayor realized, ‘Oh, this is why you need bus shelters.’ It didn’t click as a necessity before—it seemed like a ‘nice-to-have.’ But when you’re waiting for more than 5 minutes, you feel the heat, the rain, or the snow.”

Grassroots Actions Across the Country

Communities have adapted the initiative to address local transit challenges in creative ways:

• Spokane, Washington: Activists secured free lumber and built 27 bus benches across the city where seating was completely absent.
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Advocates organized press conferences during the week to highlight impending transit budget cuts and rally support for public funding.
• Rural Communities: Research interviews uncovered how non-drivers in rural areas face unique gaps, such as a lack of ride-share availability on Sunday mornings for church services due to late-night shifts the evening prior.

Rapid Growth & Local Impact

Rather than operating top-down, the campaign empowers local “community leads”—which include non-profits, transit agencies, regional planning commissions (MPOs), and individual advocates—by providing customizable media templates, outreach graphics, and storytelling guides.

In places like Worcester, Massachusetts, local organizers are entering their third year of hosting Week Without Driving events, using the momentum to build partnerships with elected leaders and secure regional sponsorship.

The Intersection of Data and Lived Experience

Looking ahead, the Non-Drivers Alliance is expanding its research efforts in partnership with institutions like UC Davis, the Climate Community Institute, and Transit Center. A primary focus is equipping advocates to pair hard data with personal storytelling.

While statistics show transit gaps on paper, pairing a data point with a human story transforms abstract numbers into actionable policy decisions. As federal funding fluctuates and local budgets face pressure, keeping these personal narratives at the forefront ensures that mobility remains recognized not as a luxury, but as a fundamental lifeline.

Learn more about Week Without Driving and watch the recording of this WalkMass network here.

Blogpost by Emma Itri, Dev + Comm Manager.

When Foreign Service Officer Sarah Debink Langenkamp returned to the U.S. after managing a $600 million program in Ukraine, she chose to ride her bike as often as she could—to enjoy the outdoors and live lightly on the planet. But riding home from her children’s school in Bethesda, Maryland, she was struck and killed by a turning truck.

In the wake of her loss, her husband, Dan Langenkamp, was forced to confront a devastating reality: the national epidemic of traffic violence. The year Sarah died was the deadliest year for pedestrians in forty years and the deadliest on record for cyclists. But rather than letting grief remain silent, Dan turned tragedy into an engine for national legislative change, giving rise to the Ride for Your Life movement.

At WalkMassachusetts, we know that transforming our roadways requires more than just mourning losses—it demands organizing communities and pushing directly for systemic policy fixes. Dan’s journey from a single memorial ride in D.C. to massive multi-city events in Boulder, Madison, and Boston offers a powerful blueprint for effective road safety advocacy:

• Center the Human Experience: Every event centers on a real person—like Sarah, Magnus White, or Louisa Gag—putting a personal face on statistics that decision-makers too often treat as abstract numbers.

• Pair Remembrance with Direct Policy Asks: Memorials must drive actionable legislative changes. Dan’s efforts helped pass state-level safety bills and introduced federal acts like the Sarah Debink Langenkamp Active Transportation Safety Act and the Magnus White Cyclist Safety Act.

• Unite Pedestrians and Cyclists: True safety advocacy spans all vulnerable road users. By intentionally pairing bike rides with accessible, one-mile “Walks for Your Life,” these events invite families, walkers, transit riders, and cyclists of every age and ability to stand together.
  
• Build Broad Coalitions: Winning real policy requires coordination between local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy organizations, victim advocacy groups like Families for Safe Streets, municipal leaders, and industry partners.

Whether we are addressing truck safety regulations, closing gaps in pedestrian infrastructure, or tackling vehicle speeds, systemic change happens when leaders see a unified constituency demanding better. As Dan reminds us, our roadways aren’t built for throughput speed alone—our streets exist for everyone.

Join WalkMassachusetts and the Ride for Your Life at our upcoming local events to help us push for safer, more accessible streets across the Commonwealth. Ride for Your Life in Boston will be on October 25th, 2026. Learn more here. A recording of this Walkmass Network from August 2026 can also be viewed here.

Blog post written Emma Itri, Dev and Comm.

Walkable, connected neighborhoods were created not by chance but were built, brick by brick and bylaw by bylaw, through a century of deliberate land use decisions that determined not just where housing goes, but who gets to live there. During June’s WalkMassachusetts Network meeting, Boston Indicators Senior Fellow and housing and zoning expert Amy Dain laid out a simple, urgent framework. If Massachusetts wants to address housing supply and affordability while strengthening walkability, it has two core strategies: adding housing to neighborhoods that are already walkable, and adding housing to existing neighborhoods while simultaneously making them more pedestrian-friendly. Both matter, but as Dain made clear, one is much easier than the other. Using her own Newtonville neighborhood five years after the passage of the MBTA Communities Act as a case study, she showed how multi-family housing near transit, shops, and schools creates more than homes. It creates the density that keeps local businesses alive, supports transit, and makes walking a practical part of everyday life.

The biggest obstacle, Dain argued, is often not design but engagement. Hyperlocal public hearings and discretionary zoning can turn every housing proposal into a referendum on neighborhood concerns: traffic, flooding, parking, neighborhood change, among others. Those concerns are real, but Dain noted how they can create a system that lets legitimate neighborhood concerns, voiced by those already housed, crowd out the broader regional need for more homes. Massachusetts’ 2021 MBTA Communities Act is one attempt to change that by requiring multifamily housing near transit to be allowed “by-right,” reducing barriers to the kinds of small-scale infill, accessory dwelling units, and mixed-use projects that can gently grow our walkable centers. If we want more walkable communities, we need to make it easier to build in them.

Much of today’s housing growth is happening in strip malls, office parks, and highway corridors, the very places least designed for walking. These sites are huge opportunities if we plan holistically. Rail trail connections, wider sidewalks, shade trees, bus service, safer crossings, and less parking sprawl all can be part of the equation for addressing housing and walkability. To learn more, you can find Amy Dain’s presentation at this link.

Blog post by Marc Armena, Summer 2026 Intern for WalkMassachusetts.

Date of walk audit: May 27, 2026

Facilitators: Brendan Kearney, Iolando Spinola, Jonny Gomez-Pereira and Emma Itri

What is it actually like to walk along High Street in Danvers? In late May, WalkMassachusetts and the Danvers Accessibility Commission led a climate‑focused walk audit on High Street / Route 62 near the Route 128 interchange. We selected our location with the assistance of the Boston Region MPO. They conducted an analysis using their NO-HEAT UTCI Data Explorer to identify key corridors in each municipality that are susceptible to heat stress for pedestrians and face other significant challenges. Our objective was to document safety, accessibility, and heat-related issues on a relatively short but crucial corridor that connects nearby homes to downtown, Walgreens, and other common destinations. 

Climate and comfort issues were central to the audit. Using a handheld thermometer, participants recorded surface temperatures above 100°F on dark asphalt, while lighter sidewalks were up to 15°F cooler. Shade was virtually nonexistent along most of the route, especially near the highway interchange. Furthermore, participants noted that the elements pose a year-round threat: in the winter, weak enforcement of sidewalk shoveling and frequent parking on sidewalks make winter walking extremely difficult, making many seasons challenging for walking.

These conditions have clear impacts on daily life. While walking, we came across kids selling lemonade on High Street, a bustling road that connects to Route 128. They and their mother informed us that they are not permitted to cross High Street near the on/off ramps. However, they would be delighted if they could walk or use their bikes and scooters to reach the trail, which could be extended just three blocks away if it were safe to do so. It would be unfortunate if their parents had to drive them there. 

Communities require funding not only to pave and restore existing infrastructure, but also to plan and build for the future. During our walk, people expressed their anticipation for a rail trail, which would provide individuals with alternative, low-stress transportation options, allowing residents to move around on foot without dealing with highway on- and off-ramps.

It is no secret that walking near the highway ramps is stressful; our walk audit pinpointed why this stretch feels so hostile to vulnerable road users. Participants found multiple signal and crossing problems. A “No Turn on Red” sign that should have been illuminated at 128 South Exit 42 off-ramp was not working. Some off‑ramps had walk signals while the on‑ramps did not, and in a few locations the pedestrian indication did not clearly match vehicle movements. Crosswalks were hard to detect, with minimal audio feedback and at least one push button that was not accessible to wheelchair users.

Taken together, the findings show that High Street is a short distance but a major barrier for people walking, especially those most affected by heat, disability, age, and lack of car access. Addressing the issues identified in this walk audit is essential to making Danvers’ streets safer, more accessible, and more climate‑resilient.

We would like to thank the Danvers Accessibility Commission and our walk audit participants for helping us conduct this walk audit.

In the months ahead, WalkMassachusetts will be conducting additional climate‑focused walk audits in other North Shore communities, building on the same approach used in Danvers to document heat, safety, and accessibility challenges along key corridors. This audit was a training session, and it, along with these future walks, will help create a clearer regional picture of where people are most at risk when they travel on foot as well as what kinds of design and policy changes can make the biggest difference. 

For Danvers, we are now drafting a full written report from this walk audit that will summarize the observations, data, and recommendations in one place. That report will be shared with participants and local partners in the coming days so they can review the findings, offer feedback, and begin using it to inform advocacy and next steps with the town. The Danvers Accessibility Commission is also considering other areas where it will lead its own walk audits in the future. Once finalized, you’ll be able to find this audit report alongside other walk audit reports on the WalkMassachusetts audit database: https://audits.walkmass.org/.