Week Without Driving challenges people to go one week without driving to learn firsthand about the barriers people face outside of a car. Taking the bus, walking and biking, or paying for rideshare shows the hidden costs of car-centric infrastructure, which Week Without Driving shines a light on. The 2025 challenge takes place September 29 to October 5.

SGA’s new blog series on examining our built environment shows how you can use walk audits, bike audits, and accessibility audits as tools to keep advocating for these necessary changes, during Week Without Driving and beyond. In communities across the U.S., our streets and transit systems are designed first and foremost for cars—not people. That design choice has consequences: sidewalks are broken or missing, curb ramps are absent, and bus stops are often nothing more than a pole on the side of a busy road with no safe way to reach them. For millions, these aren’t small inconveniences—they’re barriers that cut off access to jobs, healthcare, education, and community. People with disabilities, who make up nearly 29 percent of the U.S. population, are especially impacted. The consequences are severe: adults with disabilities are twice as likely to be unemployed, more than three times as likely to miss out on healthcare due to transportation barriers, and report chronic loneliness and isolation at over four times the rate of their non-disabled peers.

But this isn’t just a disability issue. Parents pushing strollers, older adults, children walking to school, people recovering from injuries, bicyclists, or even travelers with luggage all benefit from safe, accessible streets. When we prioritize accessibility, we create healthier and more connected communities for everyone.

What accessibility audits are and why they matter

A critical tool for solving this problem are accessibility audits—tours of a community that evaluate how well streets, sidewalks, intersections, and transit work for people of all abilities.

Accessibility audits are more than checking ADA compliance boxes. They reveal whether infrastructure is actually usable for real people. Can someone cross a street in the time allowed by the signal? Can a wheelchair user reach a bus stop? Are curb ramps placed where people actually need them?

The core of a good accessibility audit is understanding that experience is expertise. People with disabilities have to be central participants alongside planners, engineers, and advocates. Successful accessibility audits catch problems early, inform priorities, and make sure public investments are serving everyone.

In March 2025, Smart Growth America hosted an “Accessibility is for Everyone” walking/rolling tour in Washington, DC. During the tour, participants visited a few locations:

• Chinatown Metro station, where they explored the importance of reliable signage, elevator access, and station navigation.

• Foggy Bottom neighborhood, where discussions focused on dangerous intersections, crossing signals, and bus stops.

• The Park at CityCenter, where the group wrapped up the tour by reflecting on all the barriers and solutions they observed, and what insights they gained to bring into their own communities.

To guide the experience, participants used an “iSpy list” where they could check off notable features like curb ramps, signage, working or broken elevators and users who are impacted by accessibility including seniors, kids, parents with strollers, and people with mobility aids. It also provided blank space for the group members to jot down their observations during the tour.

The tour guides shared their experience and expertise at each stop which allowed participants to gain insights grounded in lived experience. Powerful moments also came from conversations that happened organically throughout the tour. As the group walked together, participants began pointing out things they noticed, sharing personal stories, and realizing how many barriers our current infrastructure creates. During the tour, the group only used elevators and routes that were accessible to everyone in the group. An out of service elevator forced the group to take an alternate route, which brought something into sharp focus for everyone—a major cost of inaccessibility is something invaluable and irreplaceable: time.

This tour looked a little different from a typical accessibility audit. Instead of focusing on one project site, it brought together people from all over the country. But the impact was the same: folks started noticing barriers they hadn’t seen before and left with ideas for how to fix them.

What makes an accessibility audit successful

An effective accessibility audit has a few key ingredients:

• Prioritization: Conduct audits early in the design process so that accessibility isn’t an afterthought, and to avoid expensive fixes down the line.
• Perspective: Recruit a diverse group of participants, especially people with disabilities, to bring a range of perspectives and lived experiences.
• Engagement: Keep participants engaged with tools like checklists, maps, or even the “iSpy” approach that SGA used in DC. Download the SGA Accessibility Audit iSpy List or check out these downloadable worksheets from AARP’s Walk Audit Tool Kit.
• Connection & Action: Follow up with surveys, publish the findings, and use the results to inform priorities. Be transparent about what steps will be taken to implement what was learned from the audit to create accountability and build/strengthen trust.

Sometimes accessibility improvements are framed as something that only benefits people with disabilities—but that’s not true. Curb ramps, audible signals, and benches help parents pushing strollers, seniors, kids, travelers hauling luggage, and many others. We need to stop seeing accessibility as a special accommodation and start understanding it for what it is—an essential part of creating convenient, usable transportation systems.

Accessibility audits are an essential tool that provide invaluable insights and direction. By making them a routine part of planning and street design, communities can create streets that truly work for everyone.

Learn more about participating in Week Without Driving at weekwithoutdriving.org.