BU Katherine Freund: Reinventing Life After Driving

By: Wayne Curtis | Source: AARP Bulletin Today | April 7, 2006

In 1988, Katherine Freund's 3-year-old son, Ryan, was crossing a street outside their home when he was badly injured by an 84-year-old driver, who later said he thought he'd hit a dog. For Freund, it was an abrupt and unfortunate introduction to the issue of older drivers. Freund later studied public policy in graduate school and learned that although the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had a department examining the issue, and though older drivers had among the highest rates of fatal crashes per mile driven, still, nobody had a good solution. So she made the issue her cause. Wayne Curtis spoke with Freund at her office in Westbrook, Maine.

How did the idea of this network come about?

I think of mobility as something essential, like oxygen. This is going to sound hokey, but there are two kingdoms—plants are rooted, and animals are not. We need to be able to move. It's fundamental to have mobility and to feel free. When the only way people can really get around is a car and then you take that away from them, they fight. It's that basic.

People are aging normally, but the transportation system is broken. By creating an alternative that is truly acceptable, I wanted to make it possible for people to make good decisions and feel good about themselves.

Why donate a car?

I used to see older people stop driving, and they would give their cars away to a family member, since they weren't trading it in for a new one. They take their largest asset and don't use it for their own good. That just made me nuts.

How is ITN different from a taxi service?

The entire community participates—including retailers, health care providers and the adult children of older people. In a sense, we're de-professionalizing transportation. It has been farmed out to professionals over the years. We're taking it back.

ITN is really a 19th-century model, more like Goodwill Industries or the YMCA. Those are national nonprofits with local branches that provide a paid service that's supplemented by local support. It's not a new model at all. I thought it was original when I first thought of it. Then I realized, hey, it's 150 years old!

How can a local, community-based program expand nationally?

The two things that we have to offer are the technology—the software we developed for scheduling rides and running the program—and the business model. Every ITN loses money on every ride, so you need to learn how to build a diversified base of support that raises the funds to complement the fare.

We're really running two organizations—a transportation service and a community outreach organization that gathers the volunteers, resources and community connections to keep the service sustainable.