Editor's note: Evie Hemphill, program director for St. Louis BWorks, challenged St. Louis leaders to go car-free for one day. Only nine leaders actually went through with it. Read about the challenge here.
Traffic-related deaths spiked during the pandemic, both in St. Louis and across the U.S., and a long simmering public health issue suddenly became a major focus. The terrifying behavior of drivers around the metro has only given fuel to the fire. You could even argue it was the issue that toppled St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.
Yet while Evie focuses, rightly, on the leaders who chose not to take up her car-free challenge, I was intrigued by the ones who did. Even beyond the angry and distracted drivers who terrorize our roadways, the region is a frustratingly complicated place to get around if you don't have a car, with infrequent and incomplete bus service in most neighborhoods outside of the central core, and road design that prioritizes cars over pedestrian and bicyclist safety. When I see my fellow moms at bus stops, trying to get their kids to childcare before they go to work, I wonder how difficult it must be to ride the proverbial mile in their shoes. I can't imagine trying to get my kids to daycare, school and athletic practice without a car, much less squeezing in a day of work and meetings around those obligations. I was genuinely curious how the people who ran Evie's gauntlet had pulled it off.
Over the course of a few weeks, I followed up with challenge participants to get their thoughts. I was unsurprised to learn how many had to choose their days of going car-free with extreme care — not a single participant managed to handle a normal day of ferrying kids around without one! But I was also touched by the effort they made and the many thoughtful reflections they shared.
Here are some of the highlights.
Liberation in South City
Karisa Gilman-Hernandez and her husband have long been a one-car family — out of habit more than principle. "We live like we're poorer than we are, which I'm OK with," says Gilman-Hernandez, the city's 15th Ward committeewoman and a community organizer for Dutchtown South Community Corporation. "When we first moved to St. Louis city, he was a graduate assistant and I was a part-time retail manager. Now that we could carry a car note, we're like, 'Eh, we're used to it.'"
The result has been that Gilman-Hernandez, who hates driving, did a lot of it. She'd drop her husband at work and then double back past their home to take herself to her office. All the while, she felt serious anxiety.
She'd given some thought to getting an e-bike and using that to get to work, but it wasn't until the car-free challenge that she took the plunge and bought a used one.
"I'll get excited about something, and then I'll never do it again," she explains. "I didn't want that to happen with this bike. The challenge gave me a free pass. I thought, 'I can do it one day' and after that day, if I'm like, 'I can't do this,' it'll be OK. Because I only did it for the challenge."
Gilman-Hernandez approached her inaugural e-bike commute with great trepidation. "I told my husband, 'According to Google maps, it's 15 minutes, so if you don't hear from me in 30, this is my route, come find me.'"
But, she stresses, it was fine. And though she'll quickly concede St. Louis drivers can be terrifying, she also realized she found biking alongside them far less terrifying than driving.
She now regularly e-bikes to work — and she feels liberated. It's not just the release from a situation she found stressful; she also feels a new willingness to stop along the way and explore. She found real joy stopping at the local school's "neighborhood coffee corner"; once she didn't have to worry about parking, it was easy to stop and chat for a bit.
She also likes the time alone with her thoughts.
"I don't listen to music because I want to hear what's going on around me," she explains. "It has pushed me to thinking things through. I'm just way more relaxed.
"It definitely has been a net positive."
New Awareness in Maplewood
A busy mom of two, St. Louis County Councilwoman Lisa Clancy originally aimed high for her car-free day. "I started to poke around with bus routes to see what that's like for someone who has to figure that out, and I got flustered," she admits. "It's complicated!"
In a town like Maplewood with limited bus service, the kid component adds a whole layer. "The complication of getting a two-year-old on and off a bus — that's tough. Even if you can navigate public transportation getting them to or from school, what if there's an emergency?"
So Clancy stayed on foot for her challenge day. And while she enjoyed a day free of cars, she knows the privilege of living where she does. "I live in a very walkable community. I can walk to the grocery store, the coffee shop, the playground, the library. And I have a bike!"
She thinks about mothers who have to use the bus system to get kids to daycare, or people who can't walk to the library or a grocery store. "A lot of things about our infrastructure favor cars," she says. "We're not equipped to efficiently get people around to where they need to be without a car. We have buses, MetroLink, and other services as well, but it seems like a high misery cost for people who need to use those services reliably in terms of time, planning, and even physical fitness."
If Every Day Could Be Spring Break
On a normal day, Emily Jane Hubbard's time in the car starts as early as 6:40 a.m., when she climbs in to drop her middle schoolers off for their first class.
"I feel bad that we don't send them on the bus, but our stop picks up at 6:15, and we have a commitment to rest in our family that beats environmental concerns," explains Hubbard, a member of the Board of Education for the city schools and a Carondelet-based pastor's wife. "So I take them to school and drive back home, noting all the cars that have followed the same Grand-Gravois route that we take, wondering why we aren't carpooling."
After that, it's a busy day of sharing carpool duties with her husband for their elementary school kids, who have a 9 a.m. start time, before getting to her own jobs (she teaches as an adjunct at Saint Louis University and University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy). Once she's gotten the kids from school, she's ready to be done with vehicles.
"On a perfect day, I don't have to leave the house any more after that. But if we have church stuff or there's a school board meeting, I'll use the car to get to those places too," she explains.
Hubbard chose to do the car-free challenge on her kids' spring break. "I still had to teach at SLU that week, but I didn't have to take my kids to school," she recalls. "That day, I just got ready to go, walked 0.2 miles to the bus stop and hopped on a bus (the 70) and just went straight up Grand. And then I took the bus home from the stop right by the crosswalk sidewalk at SLU and walked home from the stop."
She loved it. "It was amazing to not have the mental load of driving added to my day," she explains over email. "I had to plan better to make sure I had enough time to catch the bus and for the longer bus ride, and had a sweaty fast walk to catch the approaching bus home and not have to wait an additional 15 minutes (plus the 30-minute ride home) to get home to my family." Even so, she found much to enjoy: "It was clear that the regular bus riders had a sense of community, the bus drivers had a great attitude and brightened my day, and I cannot stress enough what a relief it was for someone else to be the driver on our troubled city streets."
If only it would be possible outside of school breaks. Hubbard blames in part the city's reliance on school choice even within the public system, which means families can have three different start times and three different bus routes even when the kids originate from the same household. She writes, "My first takeaway, as a school board member and a parent, is that we need to figure out a solution to our three-tier bus system in SLPS, so every day can be like spring break. My second takeaway is that going around the bus when it is trying to get back into traffic is so rude.
"My third takeaway was that I could put the [Metro Transit] app on my older kids' smartphones, and they could have way more freedom (to at least go up and down Grand) this summer without my turning into a chauffeur.
"But my biggest takeaway was how much taking the bus caused me to slow down, to take time, and to be with people not of my choosing and yet feel connected by our common needs. Until we can fix the school issue, I won't be able to go car free every day, but I certainly plan to take the bus to get up and down Grand as often as I can."
Laura Arnold, the mayor of Webster Groves, was asked by a constituent to participate in the challenge and says she "readily agreed." While Arnold frequently has car-free days where she walks around Webster, she decided to take things a step further and choose a day when she'd have to rely on public transportation.
"I knew that there would be challenges because bus service is significantly limited in Webster," she later explained on Twitter. But even she was surprised by just how limited it was. Attempting to use transit to attend a monthly meeting at a restaurant, she plugged into the Metro trip app — only to find out that it recommended she walk all or most of the way.
She gave up and tried a different day, which featured a meeting of the region's mayors. The Metro trip app found a route that would take 86 minutes instead of the 22 she'd spend by car. It felt impossible: "Given what else I had on the schedule that day, spending three hours in transit was not feasible."
Arnold realized she had to give up on the idea of incorporating public transit.
"I won't bore you with the details of my other failed options," she tweeted. "Let's just say all required at least doubling travel time and leaving gaps in my day to accommodate bus schedules. The bottom line is that I failed this challenge when I required the use of public transportation.
"Why? There are both individual and structural reasons. First, I prioritized my needs, especially my time. That is quite a luxury. Even when choosing particular days, I got to opt out if it did not fit my schedule. So many of our community members don't have that choice.
"Second, the existing bus lines are limited. The system in St. Louis County is largely set up to go east/west rather than north/south. You can do north/south only by spending a lot of time going east/west. While that is not news to anyone, it matters in thinking about use.
"Third, the frequency of buses means that timing any arrival/departure is really challenging."
Arnold finished with a few takeaways. "A couple of things that I learned: I am not nearly as committed to public transportation as I gave myself credit for. Yes, I take MetroLink downtown and believe in the idea of public transportation. But my personal commitment to using it is insufficient. I'll work on that. It is not easy to use public transportation from my community. Limited lines and infrequent buses make access to the entire Metro system more challenging than it should be. I've got constituents who want to limit the number of cars in our community. I don't know how we do that without more accessible public transportation.
"My experiment failed even without having to deal with delays, rerouting or mechanical issues. What might life be like for the regular user who sees these challenges all the time?"
Her conclusion: "While I absolutely failed this challenge, I did learn some things. Most importantly, we've got to do better."
The Reluctant Driver
Former alderman Bill Stephens didn't get his license until his mid-20s. At age 16, a friend was driving him home from a Lady Gaga concert when they were hit by a drunk driver, an incident that initially left Stephens too scared to learn how to drive.
"I would take two buses and both trains to get from Hazelwood to Webster University to audit courses, oftentimes sleeping on dorm room floors because I'd missed the bus," he recalls. "Eventually I moved a mile from Webster's campus and would walk — rain, sleet or snow."
Stephens now drives and frequently travels on I-44 or I-55 from his home in south city to meetings downtown. He's also chair of the Missouri Democratic LGBTQ+ Caucus, which requires frequent trips to Jefferson City, and for his car-free challenge day, he was able to take a charter bus to the state Capitol. "Though I prefer Amtrak over buses, both allow me to work or catch up on reading," he explains in an email.
While his day without a car went fine, he's focused on bigger issues, as he explains by email:
"As a young man, I've had the pleasure of seeing how mass transit works in Chicago; Dallas; Kansas City; Washington, D.C.; and more. Once you look behind the curtain of public office, you can never forget what you've seen; I've annoyed my fiance more than once by stopping to take pictures or jot down notes of another city's approach to infrastructure and transit.
"But the city of St. Louis — and indeed, the St. Louis metro area — are at a significant disadvantage when it comes to mass transit. The Missouri Assembly intentionally restricts funding for mass transit ... and keeps the municipal government from having a seat at the Bi-State Development table, which works with representatives and senators from Missouri and Illinois. And as you can imagine, the state assembly is all too happy to let people point the finger of blame at the City of St. Louis, which has little direct authority in the matter of mass transit.
"My biggest takeaway: Mass transit has become another wedge issue used to validate the stranglehold our state assembly has on it. But that is only part of the issue: The U.S. could and should be a shining star of mass transit at every level of government, but has intentionally failed to do so. Who gets hurt when the government is negligent? Those with the least options available to them."
His Everyday Routine
When it comes to getting around the city, former south city alderman Dan Guenther does it all — except, these days, drive. "I mix transportation between bicycling, walking, Lyft/Uber and our bus system," he explains. "If I need to work downtown, I have easy access to the 30, 11 and 10 lines of Metro, which all get me to the Civic Center. From the Civic Center, you can get to every part of our region." He often bikes to work and takes the 30 home at night. For him, the car-free challenge was simply business as usual.
Guenther says the hardest part of being car-free is late-night bus service. "The bus I use most often, the 30 line, stops running around 8 p.m., so anything later than that I need to walk or bike to reach another line that runs later."
But the car-free life also has major perks. Asked what's the best, Guenther responds, "The people I meet while riding the bus system. There are a lot of stories and random conversations while standing at a bus stop and waiting.
"My favorite is a retired bus driver that rides the 11 line on Jefferson Avenue. He gives a recital of what businesses are at every bus stop and what lines you can connect to at each location. Another 'best' thing is talking to people that have complaints about our city and being able to direct them on how to fix problems or let them know what steps the city is taking to make their situation better."
That said, Guenther's not surprised that many of his now-former colleagues can't replicate his routine for even a single day.
"Being a public official pulls you in many different directions, usually with very little time between meetings or appointments," he says. "I feel I am lucky to live in a neighborhood with very good access to many bus lines, allowing me to travel to different areas of the city in a relatively short time."
He hopes others give the car-free life a try. "I would hope more residents realize that public transit is easy to use and more reliable than in the recent past. The rates are very affordable ($1 per ride), and if you have a single destination or just want to explore a new area, using public transit allows residents a chance to sit back, enjoy a ride and let someone else do the driving."
He Had to Do It
Michael Browning was running for alderman (successfully, it should be pointed out) at the time he volunteered for the car-free challenge. The issues it raised were important to him. From 2012 until the pandemic allowed him to work from home, he regularly commuted by MetroLink, biking or walking. But as he found himself pressed for time during the campaign, he turned to the family car much more frequently.
Doing the car-free challenge during the campaign proved to be uniquely challenging — but also an eye-opener. "I discovered a lot of the infrastructure I knew was lacking was even more dangerous than I thought it was," Browning acknowledges.
His ward, which includes a broad swath of the Central West End and Forest Park Southeast, may seem pedestrian- and bike-friendly, but Browning quickly found himself in harrowing situations (Lindell was particularly "terrifying," he says) and frustrated by the lack of bike-friendly parking.
He understands why many public officials simply ducked the challenge. "I'm not surprised," he says. "Our city is so built around car dependency it's daunting to even try to do this for a day."
Yet Browning wants St. Louis to do better.
"I was told by my campaign manager and my wife, 'You don't actually have to do this.' I told them, 'Yes, I do,'" he recalls. "'I have to put myself there and carry out what I've been talking about on the campaign trail — and to tell people this is possible.' Even then, it was difficult to do."
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