Happy National Transportation Week!  According to US Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, 2012 marks the golden anniversary of an event that is rooted in education about the importance of our national transportation network.  And on a local level, the signs of new thinking on transportation are everywhere.  This week brought the launch of the “flex-lane” driving experience on the shoulder of Georgia 400.  A new airport terminal opened its doors to the world.  And The Clean Air Campaign typed up this blog entry for your enlightenment.  Some might call this an epic week.

Wireside Chats: Dial In for Details on Transportation Referendum Projects

Media attention continues to build in anticipation of the July 31 regional transportation referendum that will allow voters to choose whether to use a penny sales tax collected over ten years to fund $8.5 billion in transportation improvements across the 10-county metro Atlanta region and parallel improvement projects at differing levels of investment drawn up in 11 other regions of the state.  In a recent conversation with officials representing the Transform Metro Atlanta campaign, their hope is that news outlets and citizens will begin to dive deeper into the specific projects that the referendum would fund.  During six evenings in June, the Atlanta Regional Commission will host a series of 12 Wireside Chat events, which are hour-long interactive phone conversations centered around a detailed map of proposed projects. Local officials will provide a brief overview of the July 31 referendum and answer questions about the project list that goes with the referendum. Worth a few minutes to be part of this conversation to see what might get built near your home or workplace.  Register at www.wiresidechats.com.

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Halfway There: The Potential of “Park to Pedal”

May is National Bike Month.  In its role as an invitation to drivers to try bicycle commuting, the message is well-received by a growing number of people in the metro Atlanta region.  But the barrier for most remains high, given that the average metro Atlanta commute is 17.5 miles each way.  Still, this recent article in the Huffington Post outlines an idea that might work for more of us.  What if we drove partway to our work destination, parked the car, pulled the bike out of the trunk and then pedaled the rest of the way in?  In a climate of crazy gas prices and less free time to work out, this might become a worthwhile strategy to test out.  Could you do it?     

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Costly Commuting: Driving Costs Per Mile Edge Upward

The American Automobile Association recently released its annual “Your Driving Costs” study, which examines the cost per mile to own, operate and maintain a vehicle.  According to AAA, this study has been performed annually since 1950, when the cost per mile was a whopping nine cents.  Fast forward 62 years and the cost per mile has risen to 59.6 cents per mile.  That’s up about three cents from a year ago due to higher costs for resources like gasoline and rubber to make tires, as well as higher insurance premiums and taxes.  The Clean Air Campaign uses a lower number that excludes ownership costs to illustrate the savings commuters can realize when they drive less.  Take our updated commute calculator for a spin and see what you could put back into your piggy bank.

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Air Aware: 15 Metro Atlanta Counties Not Meeting Latest Ground-Level Ozone Standard

The US Environmental Protection Agency recently issued final designations for areas that have been found to be out of compliance with standards for ground-level ozone.  When the 2008 standard was implemented, the measuring stick got shorter.  So, too, did the list of counties not meeting the standard.  That’s an encouraging sign of progress, as regulatory and voluntary actions in Georgia continue to work harmoniously to improve air quality.  But with long-term growth projections and increasing energy demands, there is more work to be done.  

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The countdown is on for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games! With the London Opening Ceremonies drawing near, a final push of preparations is underway. One of the major undertakings has been a $15 billion investment of revamping the transportation system through London – a civil engineer’s dream!

London is renowned for its extensive transportation infrastructure so one could only expect it to be advertised as the preferred method of Olympic travel. Some of the major implementations to ensure the greenest Olympic Games to date are:

• Parking will only be available for officials and the disabled.
• Commuters are being given free access to public transit throughout the day of an event with their ticket.
• Two high speed trains - the Olympic Javelin and the EuroStar. The Javelin is capable of reaching 140 mph and will run every 7 minutes carrying 25,000 passengers per hour. The EuroStar helps long distance commuters from France into London.
• Car-sharing, carpooling, bike sharing and additional buses will help relieve the street traffic.
• A 39-mile ribbon of fast lanes and shortcuts throughout London, called the Olympic Route Network, has been engineered to transport the 80,000 athletes, officials and members of the Games’ inner circle.

All of this will help ensure transportation efficiency so spectators, athletes and officials arrive to the events on time.

The circumstances are quite different compared to the 1996 Olympics. The Atlanta Games were spread across the state reaching Athens, Savannah, Stone Mountain, Conyers and Lake Lanier, and without the expansive transportation systems London boasts, issues were bound to happen - buses full of reporters were not meeting deadlines, athletes moved out of the Olympic Village in fear of not getting to their venues on time, and events were delayed due to athletes arriving late.

Today’s technology is also far more superior. In 1996, Google had just been born, MMS was science fiction, and the DVD was a year away. Today, we have progressive programs allowing better traffic simulations, modeling and training.

It wasn’t all terrible in 1996 – the Buckhead, Medical Center and Dunwoody MARTA stations opened in preparation for the Games, adjustments were made to trains allowing more standing room, Express parking lots outside the Perimeter allowed bus services to Stone Mountain and Conyers, and major downtown employers introduced clean commute methods that The Clean Air Campaign promotes like carpooling, flex-time and teleworking, which helped keep street traffic manageable.

In just a few weeks, we will see what kind of show seven years of planning and construction, $15 billion and long-lasting improvements will look like. What we can hope for this upcoming summer is not only many medals won by our athletes, but swift, safe and green transportation to and from events, for both spectators and athletes.

On this Valentine's Day, and every day, our hearts beat true for less traffic and cleaner air.  So, pucker up and embrace the clean commuting love in this latest edition of Merging Lanes.

Romantic Routes: Georgia Ranks High on Roads with Amorous Names

Who knew?  Just in time for Valentine’s Day, an entertaining report from a maker of GPS devices reveals that some of the most “romantic” roads in the U.S. are found right here in the Peach State.  Georgia boasts 70 miles of roads with amorous names that include phrases like “Darling” or “Rose” or “Heart” in them.  Perhaps just the inspiration you need to fall in love with a commute alternative, like this cute couple.

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Thinking Big for Cleaner Air: Article Suggests Smog Solutions

Great article from National Geographic that describes the causes of air pollution and offers a handful of “big picture” ideas to tackle the problem.  While the intro concentrates on the state of the air in Los Angeles, there are many parallels to the challenges we’re facing in Georgia, from population growth to increasing pressure on the existing transportation network.  Among the many spot-on suggestions?  Increasing public awareness when air quality is unhealthy.  The Clean Air Campaign has you covered with Smog Alerts.  More than 12,000 Georgians are signed up to receive them.  Are you?

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Purchasing Power of a Penny: ATL Transportation Referendum Projections Spell Out Potential Benefits

The Atlanta Regional Commission recently released a raft of projections about the economic and quality of life benefits that the 150+ projects on the docket for Atlanta could yield.  Among the notable forecasts: the total $8 billion list could yield a 4:1 return on investment, and the environmental benefits derived from less vehicle idling in traffic could yield air quality improvements roughly equal to 72,000 fewer tailpipes on the road.  Still puzzling through the data, but it's clear this information will shape the way in which this referendum is presented to voters.

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New Twist on Traffic Fate: Psychic Predicts Your Commute

Stalled out vehicle on the Downtown Connector.  Heavy volume at I-575.  Sunshine slowdown on I-20.  Sometimes, our collective rush hour commuting fate can feel like a roll of the dice.  And more commuters are embracing tools like 511 and Georgia NaviGAtor to help dodge traffic.  But ABC news recently reported on a more … um, celestial … method some folks are using to predict the outcome of their commute.  With tarot cards at the ready, could the traffic psychic have answers about your next trip?

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It's a fresh start and a new year, filled with high hopes for "Code Green" air quality days, sizable savings on commute costs and laughter from the passenger seat.  Feel the optimism of 2012 with this latest "glass is half full" installment of Merging Lanes.  It's gonna be a great year.

2012 Calendar Dates to Anticipate
While this year's calendar is shaping up to include a number of important dates to circle - Leap Year bonus day and Mayan prognostications notwithstanding - here are a few that should catch your attention:

• April 30 kicks off the start of Air Quality Awareness Week in Georgia.  With half of all smog-forming emissions coming from tailpipes, never has it been more important to be air aware.

• July 31 is the day we'll know whether Georgia voters approved a penny sales tax to fund transportation improvements all over the state.  There's a lot riding on the outcome of this vote in terms of attracting new enterprise and breaking out of commuter gridlock. 

• August 20 marks the beginning of the third-annual Georgia Telework Week, an event to celebrate the successes of employers and commuters who know the best commute is the one from the bedroom to the home office.

And slated for early-November is the 12th installment of The Clean Air Campaign's PACE Awards event, recognizing the best commute options programs in Georgia.  Stay tuned for more details.     

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In Good Company for Less Traffic, Cleaner Air
More than 1,600 Georgia employers and property managers are working with The Clean Air Campaign and its partners on outstanding programs that support greater use of commute options.  Recently, 130 organizations received recognition as Platinum Partners for achieving a specific threshold of "clean commute trips" during 2011.  To qualify as a Platinum Partner, at least 20 percent of all employee or tenant trips to an employer’s worksite must involve alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle trips and companies must actively educate employees about commute options.  Congrats to these workplaces for raising the bar and proving that meaningful, lasting change in the way employees choose to travel is attainable.  

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"Let's Get Physical, Physical ..."
Hitting the wall with your New Year's resolution to exercise more?  When your conference call at work is placed on hold, there's only one thing better than listening to the Muzak version of Olivia Newton-John's "totally 80s" hit song: doing an actual workout routine at your desk.  When you can't make it to the gym, The Washington Post offered these ideas to integrate into your daily routine, resulting from a study on employee health.  No spandex required. 

Click here for a printable PDF poster to tack up in your cubicle.  And remember, if you don't feel comfortable with some of these moves in the presence of your co-workers, you can always fall back on a human-powered commute for better health.

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Giant Bus!

China unveiled what is believed to be the world's largest bus, clocking in at more than 82 feet in length and capable of transporting up to 300 commuters.  Check it out! 

Could you imagine this thing rolling down Atlanta's Downtown Connector?  Could you imagine riding on it ... and logging your commute mode as "Giant Bus?" 

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Today The Clean Air Campaign released its inaugural list of Platinum Partners, recognizing employers and property managers whose employees and tenants use alternatives to driving alone for at least 20 percent of their commute trips. The initial list consists of 130 metro Atlanta and Georgia employers and property managers, including Georgia Tech. The Clean Air Campaign salutes Tech and all of the Platinum Partners achieving success in reducing traffic congestion and improving the quality of the air we breathe. When it comes to less traffic and cleaner air, these organizations are “In Good Company”. To view the complete list, click here.

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Early last year our transportation planning staff realized it was difficult to gauge how effective we were being in providing commute alternatives for employees around the Georgia Tech campus.  We had great commute programs established, but we didn’t have the exact data needed to determine just how effective we were in encouraging campus members to use clean commutes.  The result was the University’s first annual commute mode survey in which staff and students that commute to campus were surveyed on their transportation patterns (campus residents were excluded).  The results were validating for our programs, and we found that over 41 percent of the Georgia Tech community was arriving to campus via alternatives to driving alone.   Here’s the breakdown:

Using this baseline that 59% of the Georgia Tech community was driving to campus alone, we also wanted to see how we could decrease single-occupancy trips and increase the number of clean commute trips.  Finding out what catalysts would change a person’s commute to Georgia Tech’s campus was just as important to us:

These survey results really sparked some substantial improvements in our commute programs, and we wanted to share some of our progress.

While the request for more car sharing vehicles like Zipcar was fairly small (5%), it was an easy, inexpensive win for us.  Today’s 18-34 year-olds are embracing the idea of collaborative consumption, and car-sharing use has been a great success story at Georgia Tech.  Because of increased demand, Zipcar-Atlanta was able to increase our fleet by 40% to 12 vehicles.

For carpooling we were a bit surprised at the number who deemed it difficult to find carpool matches (12%), as there are already many great resources to find rides in Atlanta.  What we found was that safety was a major concern in seeking a carpool partner, and so we established an exclusive carpool ride-matching service for Georgia Tech.  The feedback has been tremendous, with 1,600 new users in six months and over 450 ride posts.  With the new system we are now able to promote commuting to campus every day, as well as ride-sharing to away football games, spring break trips and weekend grocery store visits.

The biggest takeaway from the survey was the desire for more bicycle infrastructure on campus.  Increases in bicycle commuting have been well documented in Atlanta, and Georgia Tech is seeing a similar trend.  Georgia Tech wants to continue to promote this commuting option, and the Institute and Student Government have invested over $200,000 in new bicycle infrastructure, including bicycle racks, bike lanes, bike “sharrow” markings and an innovative bike-share system that is destined for mass-appeal.  Georgia Tech has also partnered with the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, Midtown Alliance and the City of Atlanta to install the city’s first cycle track at the West Peachtree and 5th Street intersection in Technology Square.

We are proud of the progress we’ve made this past year in promoting commute options in Atlanta, and we look forward to seeing how the next commuter survey reflects these improvements.  This goes without saying, but Georgia Tech could not have accomplished these projects alone.  A big thanks to our community partners: Midtown Transportation Solutions @ Midtown Alliance, Lanier Parking Solutions, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, the City of Atlanta, Zipcar-Atlanta, viaCycle and The Clean Air Campaign.

Aaron Fowler is a Campus Transportation Planner at Georgia Tech.

As we head deeper into autumn, the landscape is treating us to a spectacular parade of orange, yellow and red hues.  Yes, turn signals and brake lights at rush hour are indeed a sight to behold.  But it’s more fun to wax poetic about the fall leaves.  So, frolic in the foliage and rake in this latest edition of Merging Lanes.

Smog-Eating Concrete

In the future green economy of America, the streets won’t be paved with gold.  They’ll be paved with titanium dioxide.  Demonstrating that innovation knows no boundaries in the shared space between transportation and air quality, engineers in Missouri recently laid down a 1,500-foot strip of asphalt that can break down ground-level ozone pollution.  Mixed into this special blend of concrete is a titanium dioxide additive that creates a photo-catalytic reaction, absorbing smog, using sunlight to break it down, and releasing it as nitrogen and carbon dioxide.  Neat.

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The Morning Ritual That’s Ruining Your Car’s Engine

With the chill of autumn comes those frosty mornings that all commuters must endure.  But there’s one driveway ritual that Georgia commuters should stop practicing because it can ruin a car’s performance.  Warming up the engine in the mornings by allowing it to idle can actually wear down engine parts and create more air pollution.  The practice of unnecessary idling on cold mornings can produce up to six grams of carbon monoxide per minute.  That’s equal to the carbon monoxide content from three packs of cigarettes.  Turns out, it’s also an easy way to get your car stolen.  Simply put, the best way to warm up your engine and create less air pollution on your morning commute is to drive your vehicle instead of idling.

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Where the Germs Are

If you need extra motivation to drive less, look no further.  From the Yuck Department, a new study found that gas pump handles may be among the dirtiest surfaces that we touch.  A team of hygienists conducted tests in six cities – including Atlanta – and determined that gas pump and mailbox handles, escalator rails and ATM buttons were more likely to harbor high concentrations of germs that can lead to illness.  In all, 71% of gas pump handles tested had high contamination levels.  Gross!

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Families Trapped in Vehicles
The headline of a recent article in Time magazine points out the depth of America’s car culture: “We Pay More to Drive Than We Spend on Taxes.”  Citing a new study conducted by a Washington, D.C. think tank, the article describes how difficult it is for the average American family to scale back on driving costs, even in the face of higher energy prices that influence everything from the cost of a gallon of gasoline to a gallon of milk.  Over the past decade, The Clean Air Campaign and its partners have helped more than 85,000 Georgia commuters get relief from the high cost of commuting through a combination of financial incentives and support programs.  We’re ready to help more people make their dollars go further by using commute options.

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Today marks the kickoff of The Clean Air Campaign’s first ever Clean Commute Week. The idea for Clean Commute Week came from a group a parents from Evansdale Elementary’s PTA Green Team, who introduced the idea last year during International Walk to School Day. The successful initiative earned the school the Marlin Gottschalk Environmental Leadership Award at The Clean Air Campaign’s recent PACE Awards ceremony in August.

As Evansdale Elementary celebrated International Walk to School day last fall, we noticed some sad faces from children who had taken the bus. Walking and biking is great and means cleaner air and healthy exercise, but for children who cannot walk or bike, riding the bus is a safe and green way to come to school. 

As a magnet school, Evansdale has many children who live far away from school and can’t walk, and who cannot feasibly ride a bus. For them, the cleanest possible commute is to share a ride with other families. So last spring we decided to turn Georgia Walk to School Day into Evansdale Elementary’s Clean Commute Week, honoring all the different ways that children can come to school that are good for the environment.  Our goal was to encourage and celebrate sustainable habits that are feasible and easy for families to adopt. We created a “Clean Commute Log” and asked students to document their commute to and from school each day for a week. To our delight, the students and their parents responded enthusiastically to this idea.  We held mini celebrations with prizes from The Clean Air Campaign for “Take the Bus Tuesday”, “Walking Wednesday” and “Ride together Friday”.  In addition, we had students add their name to a paper cut-out of a foot, bus or car to represent their type of commute. We then added the cut-outs to a large display in the foyer of the school.  Luckily we had cut out enough footprints, school buses, and carpool cars to represent each clean commuting student – the challenge was fitting them all on the display space!

If good habits can be formed when young, they may become lifelong habits.  And children – once their awareness has been raised – can become great advocates for environmental behaviors. So it seemed a good idea to encourage Evansdale Elementary students to clean commute – it would mean healthy exercise for those who walked or rode bikes and cleaner air for everyone if students carpooled or rode school buses instead of coming in many individual cars.  And if they did it during Clean Commute Week, maybe they’d form the habit and do it often. That was our hope.

This year at Evansdale we are celebrating clean commutes every Wednesday. Each student who walks, rides a bike or bus or carpools with another family receives a stamp and is entered into a monthly drawing to receive a prize and “Clean Commuter of the Month” certificate.  The students are enthusiastically participating and are proud to be a part of making our community a better place. 

Angie Claussen, Monica Castro, and Susanna Binzen are the 2010-11 PTA Green Team Chairs at Evansdale Elementary in DeKalb County.

It’s hard to believe that 15 years have passed since the 1996 Olympic Games.  This two-week event fostered unprecedented growth in the region and recognition for years after the closing ceremonies, truly solidifying Atlanta as an international city.

As we commemorate the 15th anniversary of Atlanta's Olympics, it's understandable if many Georgians who were part of the experience are feeling a bit nostalgic.  Some of us may even be tempted to dust off our Izzy memorabilia.  But those involved with The Clean Air Campaign are excited to celebrate the occasion for a different reason: the Olympic experience shaped our mission for less traffic and cleaner air, providing a glimpse into what was possible.

As the 1996 Olympics approached, senior business and political leaders agreed that traffic congestion and poor air quality could have an adverse impact on the success of the Games.  Atlanta had cultivated an image as the City that would carry off the biggest, most successful Games in history. This required not merely facilitating the 10,000 athletes involved, 15,000 members of the international press and more than 2 million spectators on hand, but also ensuring that gridlock and poor air quality issues did not upstage the Games. All agreed this would require significant efforts to reduce normal traffic congestion in the region.  For their part, the business community agreed to take steps to encourage employees to significantly reduce commuting trips during the period of the Games. In preparation for this effort, The Clean Air Campaign was officially launched in the late-spring of 1996.

The arrival of the "Games of the 100th Olympiad" brought unparalleled excitement for many, but employers and commuters were concerned about the impact of millions of visitors on Atlanta's transportation network.  How would the business community be able to conduct business as usual during the Olympics if employees couldn't get downtown?  And so, a business strategy came into focus, albeit years ahead of its time.  Allowing employees to work from home or from remote locations (telework) would help keep them out of traffic and be productive.  Ask anyone who traveled the roads at rush hour during this time and they'll tell you it was surprisingly empty. A vision for less traffic was achieved in part through the proactive, business-driven decisions of Atlanta employers.

At this same time, Atlanta's environmental and health communities observed a remarkable trend.  Air quality in the region actually improved during the Olympics.  No Code Red or Code Orange exceedences for ground-level ozone or particle pollution were observed.  A study even found area visits to emergency rooms for respiratory illness declined 40% during this timeframe.  With half of all smog-forming emissions in the region coming from tailpipes, this unexpected and positive news on air quality validated the notion that voluntary actions could move the needle toward cleaner air.

Fifteen years after the Olympic cauldron went dark, there is still much to celebrate.  The Clean Air Campaign and its partners currently work with more than 1,600 Georgia employers across the state on commute options programs that improve employee productivity and morale.  Tens of thousands of Georgia commuters have also changed their commute activity with assistance and resources from The Clean Air Campaign and more than 330 Georgia schools are involved in the Clean Air Schools program, educating future leaders about the importance of air quality.  Nearly a decade has passed since the region last experienced a Code Purple exceedence for ozone, and the number of Code Red exceedences has declined significantly. 

The transformational impact of the Summer Games on this region will always be a point of pride.  So, too, is the mission for less traffic and cleaner air.

The year 1996 was a big one for transforming metro Atlanta. Not only did the region host the Olympics, but it was also the year that traffic information in Georgia was revolutionized by the creation of NaviGAtor. Realizing the extent of traffic issues the region would encounter as employers, commuters and international visitors converged on Atlanta during the Olympic Games, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) worked with federal and local authorities to create an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) to manage the situation.

After 14 years of development, NaviGAtor continues to expand its area of coverage and has led to easier travel, increased safety and saved time and money, all while keeping pollution out of the air. About 350,000 Georgians get traffic information from www.georgia-navigator.com each week, – in addition to the thousands who use the 511 service for such options as real-time traffic updates, reporting incidents and connecting to rideshare and transit information – and the HERO service has assisted motorists involved in a million traffic incidents since launch. Yet despite all that the NaviGAtor system does to help mobility in the state, and your commute, many citizens don’t realize the impact it’s had on them.

At www.georgia-navigator.com, you can check out color-coded maps that show real time incidents, congestion and active construction.

You may forget how bad gridlock was before GDOT’s NaviGAtor came along, so here’s a little reminder. Once in the summer of 1991, there were two accidents on I-285. Pretty typical, right? Well, because the accidents were blocking the highway and assistance was unable to get there in time, people were stuck in the 90-degree temperature for hours, getting overheated, running out of gas and experiencing heat exhaustion. By the time emergency vehicles heard about and were able to respond to this situation, they couldn’t get through to the accidents because of the overwhelming volume of backed up traffic. In those days, it didn’t take much to seriously back up traffic, because if your car or truck broke down in the middle of the interstate or you got in an accident, you sat there until you could get a tow truck to come move you out of the way. Today, NaviGAtor’s HERO trucks patrol 280 miles of metro Atlanta interstates, providing assistance to motorists and commuters in need. The trucks can also be dispatched instantly when motorists report an incident using 511. Unlike 10 years ago, the average clearing time for a car accident incident is now only 10 minutes thanks to HERO, thereby keeping traffic flowing and improving your commute to work.

To better understand NaviGAtor’s impact on the region, consider this. In one year, the NaviGAtor service saved 7 million vehicle-hours of incident delays and 5.2 million gallons of gasoline. It provided 49,000 motorist assists and prevented more than 340 crashes. By helping us avoid more gridlock, NaviGAtor has also protected Georgians from exposure to the extra air pollution that sitting in traffic creates. During a sample year, NaviGAtor helped keep 186 tons of hydrocarbons, more than 2,457 tons of carbon monoxide and more than 261 tons of nitrogen oxide out of the air we breathe. A big thank you to the dedicated team working behind the scenes at NaviGAtor, because even though metro Atlanta has traffic and air quality issues, it clearly would be a lot worse without the helping hands of the NaviGAtor intelligent transportation system.

For more information about NaviGAtor and to get real-time traffic information, visit www.georgia-navigator.com, or call 511.

Seems like everywhere you look, transit riders are feeling the squeeze from reduced or discontinued service. The cuts run deep in the Atlanta region, with C-Tran going dark this past March and MARTA announcing yesterday that it's cutting about 10 percent of its bus and rail service effective in September. Also, GRTA's express bus service will begin running out of funds next year.

While Atlanta is far from alone, the double-whammy of reduced sales tax revenues down and government budget cuts is taking its toll on transit across Georgia and the US. This picture says it all.

Courtesy: Funny Times