Attending an international telecommunications conference in São Paulo, Brazil. Image by the author.

Transit Diaries is a series in which residents of the Washington region track how they get around for a week, shedding light on what’s working well and not so well with our transportation systems. We invited participants of the National Week Without Driving campaign in DC to keep diaries to share their experiences. Read past Transit Diaries.

Hi, I’m Peter. Since January 2021, I’ve been serving Adams Morgan as an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner. In addition to that role, my paid profession involves occasional travel to international conferences. As part of my participation in the National Week Without Driving, I kept this diary during one such conference.

During more typical weeks, my transit diary would entirely consist of car-free travels within DC. But like many in the Washington area, work takes me out of town to cities with different transportation realities than the DC area. In any case, I am a firm advocate of learning lessons from cities around the world to help inform and improve how we manage the District of Columbia. We’re an international city and would be foolish to pretend the rest of the world can’t teach us a thing or two about urban design.

Documenting this week of transit choices was a humbling exercise for me, in large part because it involved several days where I failed to stay car-free. For many years of my life, I relied heavily on driving to get around—mostly in a 2002 Honda Civic or Volkswagen Passat, both standard transmission. It was only about five years ago that I got rid of my car and redefined my commuting patterns. This has meant fewer parking tickets, less time stuck in traffic, and monthly car insurance expenses of $0.

It also means that trips that were previously made easy by car ownership become a little more complicated. And when we get out of our comfort zone to see how other places manage their transit, it can be a shocking reminder of how prevalent—and at times unavoidable—cars are for daily life. Similarly, going far from home has shown me how demand for car-free lives transcends borders, with like-minded people around the world seeking different ways to stay mobile.

Join me as we venture to Brazil and back to see how a couple of major cities there compare with Washington, DC.

Day 1: Monday, September 29

This first day was both abnormal and typical: I worked remotely from a relative’s residence in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, until going to the airport for a short flight to São Paulo. While traveling to and from airports is not a daily routine for me, having a busy schedule is. In this case, being busy meant choosing to take a rideshare service rather than a (much cheaper) bus to save time.

To take the airport shuttle, I would have had to travel about 3 miles by car or municipal bus to the bus station, wait for the next scheduled airport shuttle to depart, and endure the longer route with multiple stops. Considering I had large luggage and a tight schedule, paying extra for a rideshare was worth the cost.

One lesson when traveling by air is that not all airports are comparably accessible. For example, I have biked to National Airport for a flight before, and I’ve walked from a short-term rental in Rio de Janeiro to the Santos Dumont Airport. In both cases, this was possible because I packed lightly, was traveling alone, and the weather was cooperative. When the airport is farther away, you need to bring large or heavy luggage, or transit infrastructure is poorly designed, your options are more limited.

**Total distance traveled: **357.5 miles

• Walking: 0.5 mile
• Rideshare: 32 miles (28 miles from apartment to airport + 4 miles from airport to hotel)
• Flight: 325 miles (flight from Belo Horizonte to São Paulo)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: Staying in walkable areas made lunch and dinner extremely convenient.
• Hitch: The airport I traveled into is centrally located and yet has no metro stop, making car-based travel nearly mandatory there.

Uncovered bus stop next to a minor construction site. Image by the author.

Day 2: Tuesday, September 30

The excitement of traveling for work can quickly turn into frustration, especially when you need to spend time at a site located far from public transit or lodging options. This was my situation attending a conference in São Paulo, the largest metropolitan area in the Americas with nearly four times the population as the DC metro area. Despite the density of the city, not all venues are easily accessible by foot or public transit. Ideally, I would have taken the metro to the conference, but doing so would have meant walking over half a mile to a metro station, riding the metro for about an hour, then walking a mile to the conference venue. When you have a day full of meetings waiting for you, this is not a very appealing itinerary.

**Total distance traveled: **32.5 miles

• Walking: 2.5 miles (to and from metro stops)
• Rideshare: 12 miles (6 miles from hotel to conference + 6 miles from conference to hotel)
• Metro: 18 miles (to and from dinner)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: I was able to take the metro to meet friends for dinner in a walkable neighborhood downtown.
• Hitch: Walking to the metro stop was faster than trying to take a bus there, but if it had been raining I would have been less enthused with the stroll across town.

Pick-up/drop-off area for taxis and rideshares, equipped with staff to direct traffic and call out the names of passengers waiting for their driver. Image by the author.

Day 3: Wednesday, October 1

Another sunrise, another full day while attending an out-of-town conference. This is a common experience for many in DC, which got me thinking about a central question: how can I sustain a car-free routine when visiting a place for only a few days? In São Paulo my options were either to wake up extremely early in order to have enough time to account for lengthy public transit commutes, or use rideshares. At some conferences I’ve attended, the event organizes transportation for attendees to and from their hotels. This is an improvement over taxis and rideshare apps, but it still means relying upon privately owned vehicles whose availability depends on one’s ability to afford access (in this case indirectly by attending an event with a sufficient transportation budget).

Once my work obligations concluded for the day, I visited a relative for dinner in their neighborhood. The weather was pleasant, so I decided to walk to the metro stop just under a mile away. Had I needed extra space or been using a wheelchair, this would have been virtually impossible, since the sidewalks are narrow, uneven, and frequently blocked by trees, cars, and other obstacles. At the end of the evening, it was too late to take the metro (it was closed for the day) or a bus (it’s often advised not to take the bus late at night in Brazil due to safety concerns). As a result, I took a rideshare back to my hotel.

**Total distance traveled: **31.25 miles (can be a rough estimate)

• Walking: 2.25 miles (to and from metro, to and from restaurant)
• Rideshare: 21 miles (6 miles + 6 miles + 9 miles)
• Metro: 8 miles (to dinner)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: There’s something about walking onto a train with hundreds of other commuters that makes a city feel inviting.
• Hitch: Spending an hour of your day sitting in a car in traffic will put a damper on most excursions. Today was no exception.

Uneven sidewalk disrupted by a tree. Image by the author.

Day 4: Thursday, October 2

This was the last day of my work conference, and another challenging moment for avoiding car-based transportation. Commuting to the conference venue was the same as the previous two days. In the evening, I arranged to meet with friends for dinner. They were born and raised in São Paulo and—perhaps not coincidentally—insisted on driving and picking me up along the way. Much like in DC, those with deep roots in the city often commute by car and distrust public transit due to frequent delays and a lack of direct routes between places of interest.

In some ways, driving to dinner was nice, as traffic was terrible and so I had plenty of time to talk and catch up with my friends. On the other hand, traffic was terrible and spending so much time in a car eventually gets tiring. A faint silver lining to traveling by car is that it inevitably involves large parking lots, which, on this day, was one of my few opportunities to walk outdoors.

**Total distance traveled: **24.25 miles

• Walking: 0.25 mile (to and from parking lot)
• Rideshare: 12 miles (6 + 6 to and from conference)
• Carpool: 12 miles (to and from dinner)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: Dinner was at a restaurant on the grounds of one of the largest wholesale markets in the world. Seeing the enormous line of vendors preparing for the next day’s sales is a refreshing sight in a world dominated by online shopping.
• Hitch: I was interested in trying one of the bikeshare stations near my hotel, but there were no docking stations near my destination. Also, biking in São Paulo traffic without protected bike lanes is not for the faint of heart.

Cyclists riding in elevated bike lanes along a major thoroughfare. Image by the author.

Day 5: Friday, October 3

All done with conference obligations, this was my day to finish some outstanding work projects and make my way to the airport for a flight home. It was also the first day this week I didn’t set foot inside a car. Financially, this was great, since the price for a rideshare to the airport was about thirty times more expensive than the metro. However, both options are very time-consuming during rush hour, which spans most of the afternoon and evening.

Starting from my hotel, it took me nearly three hours to reach the check-in desk at the airport. Hailing a cab or rideshare might be faster, but it can still take as long as two hours in rush hour traffic (taxis are allowed to drive in bus-only lanes, which gives them an advantage over rideshare).

**Total distance traveled: **33 miles

• Walking: 2 miles (to and from metro, to and from restaurant)
• Bus: 1 mile (shuttle from metro to airport terminal)
• Metro: 30 miles (to GRU airport)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: It wasn’t exactly part of my daily commute, but for my morning run, I ran alongside the Pinheiros River, where over 13 miles of cycle track are open solely for cyclists, runners, and walkers.
• Hitch: The metro has a line that goes to the international airport, but it doesn’t stop at the actual airport building. Instead, riders need to transfer to a shuttle that crosses the highway and stops at various airport terminals, much like BWI.

São Paulo’s metro line to the international airport. Image by the author.

Day 6: Saturday, October 4

I used to avoid the Dulles airport for the understandable reason that I didn’t have an affordable way to get there. The extension of the Silver Line changed that, and now there are two options (National and Dulles airports) where you can land near DC and walk straight onto the metro. Yes, the walk through Dulles to the metro entrance is a bit long, and for some reason taking luggage on the escalators is prohibited. But that aside, it was a nice feeling getting to return home and not have to think about car traffic, parking, and road rage as I did most of this week.

Once back in the District, I walked home from the metro—again, a longer walk than is ideal for most—and did the rest of my trips by foot.

**Total distance traveled: **4,832.5 miles

• Walking: 4.5 miles (from airport to metro, from metro to home, to and from Columbia Heights farmer’s market, to and from cookout)
• Metro: 28 miles (Dulles Airport to Woodley Park)
• Flight: 4,800 miles (flight from São Paulo to Dulles)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: Walking to Columbia Heights and getting to speak with the many street vendors is a privilege. Much of the world embraces a business environment where street vending is seen as a useful complement to brick-and-mortar retailers. It’s reassuring to see DC on par with the rest of the world.
• Hitch: There were no Capital Bikeshare bikes available in the evening, so a quick ride to a friend’s cookout became a slightly longer walk.

Dulles Airport is Metro-accessible, but finding the Metro station is not always an intuitive journey. Image by the author.

Day 7: Sunday, October 5

Most days when I’m at home in Adams Morgan, I move around a lot. Whether walking, biking, or riding transit, I hardly stay in one place. This was not one of those days. Instead, except for my morning run, I spent the day entirely within the greater Adams Morgan vicinity. Such a simple Sunday was made possible by having a grocery store and restaurants within walking distance from my place of residence. To make matters even better, a Capital Bikeshare station was recently relocated to one of the grocery stores in Adams Morgan. This is very convenient when you want to stop by the store on the way home from elsewhere in the city.

**Total distance traveled: **1.5 miles

• Walking: 1.5 miles (to and from grocery store, to and from dinner)

**Highlights & hitches: **

• Highlight: Walking to the grocery store is truly a luxury that should be a basic right.
• Hitch: I did at one point have to walk across Connecticut Avenue. Such a trek is, at best, annoying and, at worst, dangerous.

The Woodley Park/Adams Morgan metro stop escalator. Image by the author.

Final tally: 42 trips

Mode	Number of trips	Percent of the total number of trips
Walking	25	60%
Carpool	2	5%
Bus	1	2%
Metro	5	12%
Rideshare	9	21%
Driving	0	0%
Total	42	100%

Over 5,000 miles of travel later, what lessons did I learn? A few key ones stuck out.

First, most cities face similar challenges in designing and maintaining their urban transit network. Of course, many specific factors come into play as well, including local political dynamics, funding availability, physical geography, and cultural norms. Yet in São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Washington, DC, and elsewhere, typical issues persist: sidewalks that are too narrow and not well kept; bus stops with insufficient cover from the elements; inefficient bus and train routes; lack of safe bike lanes; stigma and safety concerns of using mass transit alone or at late hours. The solutions to these problems might not be exactly the same across all locations, but the conversations leading to said solutions can and should inform one another.

Another lesson that resonated with me is how the most difficult segment of a trip is often the first or last part. Few trips begin or end exactly where bikes, buses, or trains are readily available. This means that “last mile” mobility can be really important.

In Adams Morgan, I rely on walking and Capital Bikeshare to get to the Metro. If either of those options becomes unfavorable—like if the roads are covered in ice or I’m traveling with someone who can’t walk or bike long distances—then the bus is my next choice. But in DC and abroad, the bus doesn’t always start and stop where I need it to. And even when it does, the amount of time you wait for the bus to arrive might be just as long as (or longer than) the rest of your trip.

A final lesson I took to heart is how non-car transportation is in high demand around the world. What prevents this from becoming the norm is often that the infrastructure for car-free travel is subpar or non-existent.

I have yet to meet someone who earnestly enjoys being stuck in gridlock traffic for hours a week. Yet people unhappy with traffic still resort to cars to get around when it is perceived as the least difficult option. But build a metro line to the airport? You see more people taking the metro to get to the airport. Construct a reliable cycle track for people to take to and from work? You see more people biking to and from work. Close pedestrian-heavy areas to vehicular traffic? You see more people walking around, frequenting parks, and patronizing local businesses. In both DC and Brazil (and beyond), I have seen this happen.

The fight to get that infrastructure created can be demanding, but once the dust settles, the results are worth the effort.