Week Without Driving 2025 Campaign
With Oaks and Spokes and America Walks
#WeekWithoutDriving Challenge
Monday September 29th – Sunday October 5th, 2025
The #WeekWithoutDriving challenge was launched in 2021 by Anna Zivarts at Disability Rights Washington. After two successful years, in 2023 in partnership with America Walks and took the Week Without Driving national, and Oaks and Spokes was one of the 142 organizations nationalwide that joined the challenge, and we’re ready to again partner with America Walks and our members to get involved in the movement.
Why Participate in the Campaign?
If you can drive or afford a car, you may not understand what it’s like to rely on walking, rolling, transit and asking for rides. But for nearly a third of people living in the United States – people with disabilities, young people, seniors and people who can’t afford cars or gas – this is our every day.
The #WeekWithoutDriving challenge was created so that those who have the option to drive can learn firsthand about the barriers and challenges that nondrivers face and work with nondrivers to create more accessible communities for all.
How does it relate to Oaks and Spokes' Mission?
Oaks and Spokes is your local advocacy organization. As we continue our advocacy effort, we love to engage with our members and our Raleigh communities, and hear what you have to say, and more importantly, what we can do for you.
Through the #WeekWithoutDriving challenge, we can learn about the efficiency and inefficiency of the bus and transit schedule and routes relating to your daily life. We can also learn about gaps in the bike lanes and sidewalks that need to be prioritized as the City of Raleigh moves forward in planning their next Active Transportation Plan.
If there are any immediate concerns or feedback, we are also your resource that connect you with your City Council in your district, or the relevant departments in City of Raleigh government.
How to Participate in the Campaign?
For a week’s time the participants are being encouraged to choose alternate and active transportation methods in lieu of single passenger car trips.
The challenge isn’t about inconvenient yourself by not driving a car, the #WeekWithoutDriving campaign was designed for the participants to understand what it’s like when one cannot drive, but have to navigate their communities and their daily routine
To help you navigate through all the planning and scheduling and wayfinding, we are sharing some very helpful transportation resources below, providing you with (hopefully) all the tools you need to navigate your way around town during the challenge.
We also build a “journal” with similar resource links that you can use to schedule and plan your trips and your days; there is journal space to record your experience, good or bad, which should help you share your stories. Click below, and save a personal copy in your Google Drive so you may use it during the week (or any week thereafter if you feel like continuing on!)
What ARE the alternative options to driving?
A Bicycle Commute to your Workplace
Participants are encouraged to perhaps take one bicycle ride for their morning commute instead of driving to their workplace.
To assist our City of Raleigh Participants, Oaks and Spokes is offering a Raleigh Bikeway Map, that can show you the City Greenways and Trails and established bike lanes. This is hosted on our website, no additional app download necessary.
The Raleigh Bikeway Map has a navigation feature. Use the 
NAV icon at the top left corner, you can enter starting point and destination, and Bikeway Map will plot a course for you, prioritizing existing greenway connection and established bike lanes.
The Raleigh Bikeway Map also shows you any recent greenway closures in order to better assist you planning your route.
Did it rain the night before? Need to know if the greenway is potentially flooded? Open up the Bikeway Map legends in the top right corner and select “Show All Water Gauges”
Run your errands with Bus Ride
Participants are also encouraged to use existing transit infrastructure. In Raleigh that is GoRaleigh and GoTriangle routes and services.
GoRaleigh operates transit routes within City of Raleigh, and GoTriangle operates regional connections between Raleigh, and Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, and Duke University.
GoTriangle also operates into Research Triangle Park and will provide a $10 voucher for a Lyft trip within the Park as part of RTP Connect.
You can find the GoRaleigh and GoTriangle Routes and Schedules, and system maps below.
Oaks and Spokes also recently implemented our membership benefit to include GoPass Membership. Please reach out to nwwd@oaksandspokes.org for details.
Carpooling and Ride Shares
Participants are encouraged to not drive, but that doesn’t necessarily mean to completely forego car trips. There are many ways to reduce single passenger car trips, by carpooling with friends and neighbors and coworkers, or utilizing existing commercial Ride Share apps and services.
Commute Smart Raleigh has an application and desktop service that allow users to create and share commute and carpool/vanpool opportunities.
Social Media Highlight
When you sign up to take the pledge, please also let us know if you are willing to allow us to share your stories and experience on social media.
As you may have noticed already, but please use the hashtag #WeekWithoutDriving if you are sharing your Week Without Driving content and stories.
You can tag @oaksandspokes on your social media posts and stories and allow us to pick it up to share, or please share with us your social media materials and we may use it for a compilation at or near the end of the challenge for a campaign recap.