School Dropoff Is Everything That Sucks About Car Culture

The first and only phone message I’ve gotten from my kid’s elementary school this year was about parking lot safety reminders: “Please listen to the directions of our staff that are in the parking lot to help direct traffic and keep children safe.” The welcome meeting for new parents was dominated by a discussion of drop-off and pick-up concerns. Last year, at his previous school, the weekly newsletters from the principal always included a note about the same. And I’m guessing if you’re a caregiver in the US, this sounds all too familiar.

I’ve come to see that the inherent chaos, inefficiency, and safety risks of school drop-offs by car mirror the paradox of car dependency more broadly: the more that people who have the choice or the privilege of driving are incentivized to drive, the more difficult, less comfortable, and less safe it becomes for people who don’t. As a parent who can’t drive, I’m reminded of this catch 22 almost daily as I navigate getting my kid across a busy intersection.

While children under the age of 16 make up about 10% of the population, nondrivers— a term that refers to everyone who doesn’t have reliable access to driving themselves in an automobile— all together make up around 30%. That 30% includes people like myself who have disabilities which prevent us from driving, like vision disabilities, developmental disabilities, mobility disabilities, neurological disabilities, mental or chronic health conditions. It also includes people who wouldn't identify as disabled, but aren’t able to safely drive, or safely drive in all conditions -- like seniors who are aging out of driving or people with anxiety or PTSD that prevents them from feeling comfortable getting behind the wheel. And it includes people who are unable to afford vehicles or afford gas, insurance and maintenance, many of whom are also disabled and from Black, brown, immigrant and tribal communities. Nondrivers include people whose licenses are suspended, young people who haven’t had the resources to go to driver’s ed, and people who choose not to drive or own vehicles. And of course, children are also nondrivers.

What if, instead of thinking about transportation access for nondriving children and youth as requiring unique and separate interventions, we develop solutions that work for all nondrivers?

For instance, all nondrivers benefit when we invest in safer routes to schools by reducing car speeds, shortening crossing times, and building better sidewalks and protected bike infrastructure. Giant cracks or uplifts in the sidewalk prevent wheelchair access, they also make it really hard to push a stroller, or if you’re a kid, you’re probably going to wipe out if you hit one of these on a bike or scooter.

For children who are fortunate enough to live within walking, rolling, or biking distance to school, it’s wonderful to encourage this “active transportation,” as it’s known. But it’s also important to consider whose work schedule allows the time to bike your kid to school, who has the physical ability to bike, not to mention access to one and somewhere to store it.

I’m particularly excited about some of the programs that exist in Washington state to make biking more available and inclusive. Our state has recently begun to fund statewide in school bike education, which offers adaptive bikes for children who need them. And while bike buses have gained some momentum, I’m more excited about initiatives like the Major Taylor Program at Cascade Bike Club that offers bike instruction and afterschool biking activities to middle school students in under-resourced communities, with the option (with state funding) to earn a bike to keep at the end of the sessions.

At the same time, when schools or after school activities assume or require a driving parent, we are also excluding many of the same families, families with the least resources and most barriers to participation. For many children, school may not be located close enough for active transportation, especially in rural areas. Many children need to attend a more distant school that offers specialized programs or resources. Access to school buses and access to public transit networks for older children and for children traveling with caregivers can make all the difference between being able to access a school with more resources or a special activity, and not having that access at all.

Dr. Kelcie Ralph at Rutgers University found that even when controlling for income, wealth, residential location, family composition, and race, “young adults who were carless as children completed less education, worked for pay less often, experienced more unemployment, and earned less than their matched peers with consistent car access.” The car dependence of our communities, in particular in the opportunities available for children, have generational impact.

And, at some level, our communities recognize this by funding school bus transportation systems. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, the majority of children from low-income families take the school bus. We understand that a child’s ability to attend school shouldn’t depend on the ability of a caregiver to transport them. But a national school bus driver shortage means that many districts are having difficulty serving routes.

Rethinking access means designing communities that are accessible to people who can’t drive, whether those people are of driving age or not.

Free transit for students helps young people develop the skills and confidence to navigate public transportation, skills that can translate to young adulthood, when they may not be able to drive or afford vehicles, or would prefer to remain free from the costs and stressors of driving. Transit agencies in Washington state are free for those 18 and under, and in Canada, most cities offer free transit to children under 12. In the US, cities that offer fare free transit to children and those with student IDs include Washington DC, Denver, and many California jurisdictions including Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, and San Francisco. (Not included on this list: systems that are fare free for everyone).

Just as children would benefit from the freedom of better access to public transit, adult nondrivers could benefit from the resources used to provide bus transport to children. In many of our rural communities, school districts provide bus transportation. But as soon as children leave high school, they age out, whether or not they can drive or afford a car. Wouldn’t it be amazing if when we provide rural transportation access to students, those routes could also serve other nondrivers who need transportation to and from population centers?

Rethinking access means designing communities that are accessible to people who can’t drive, whether those people are of driving age or not. When we think of children’s transportation as separate and different from the transportation needs of other nondrivers, we lose the potential of scalable solutions that work better when more people take advantage of them — better active transportation infrastructure, more reliable and frequent transit, and less exposure to crashes and poor air and noise quality as a result of mode shift.

So many of the indignities and limitations on the mobility of children exist because we consider nondriving children to be nondrivers only in a temporary way, not considering the children who as adults will not be able to safely drive or to reliably afford a vehicle. As a recent report from the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center at the University of North Carolina noted:

“Research shows that individuals with travel-limiting disabilities are two to three times more likely to live in households without a vehicle and rely on buses, subways, and commuter rail, compared to those living without disabilities. This means that many teens with disabilities will be using public transit, which will also require walking trips to and from transit stops, or relying on walking and bicycling when not being driven.”

If we consider the needs of nondriving children, nondriving teens, nondriving adults and nondriving seniors all together, it begins to feel inexcusable to design communities that require car ownership and the ability to drive. Recognizing the existence of nondrivers as a constituency allows us to question the profound misalignment between the way we have designed our communities around car dependency and the needs and desires of everyone who would like the freedom of movement and access without needing to be able to drive.

Anna Zivarts is the author of When Driving Isn’t an Option: Steering Away from Car Dependency (Island Press, 2024).