I grew up in a neighborhood with strictly houses, one park, and a couple of churches. The nearest train was 45 minutes away on foot. There were no bus stops. The nearest park was a 15-minute walk. Everything else — the grocery store, the school, the jobs — required a car.
I didn't have a word for what felt wrong. I just knew that everywhere I needed to go required someone else's car, someone else's time, someone else's permission. I was 16 and already dependent on a system I hadn't chosen.
When I started looking into it, I found out that the suburb I grew up in wasn't an accident. It was the product of decades of deliberate policy — zoning laws that separated homes from jobs, highways built through communities, parking minimums that consumed land that could have been parks or transit, federal subsidies that made car ownership feel cheap while hiding the true cost.
I earned four Microsoft Office certifications and realized I had the tools to do something about it. Not with a protest sign. With data. With numbers so personal, so specific, so undeniable that people couldn't look away.
DRIVETIME is that data. It's the hours you've lost. The money you've spent. The years that will pass in traffic. Made personal. Made shareable. Made impossible to ignore.
I'm studying civil engineering because I want to finish what the data starts. DRIVETIME exposes what was stolen. One day I'll help build what should have been there all along.