Posts tagged with transportation
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?"
Merge.
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.
Merge.
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
As the hub for NE Georgia, Athens is a major employment, education, health and entertainment center growing in popularity and population. A steady stream of new residents and a burgeoning daytime population brings increased challenges related to demand for energy, transportation infrastructure, and increasing air quality degradation.
According to the EPD, 62% of smog-forming emissions in Athens-Clarke County come from tailpipes of cars and trucks. This represents a significant problem for our air quality, particularly with respect to ground-level ozone. Indeed, Athens-Clarke County stands on the verge of failing to meet federal air quality standards designed to protect the public's health. With tighter standards likely to come later this year, non-attainment status could lead to stricter permitting requirements in the county, more regulatory controls, depressed economic growth, and a generally negative stigma about the quality of life in Athens.
But, with stricter regulatory and volunteer actions, Athens can face this challenge head on! By working together, every local employer, commuter, and resident can make a huge difference in improving and protecting Athens' air quality. This is one of the reasons why Athens-Clarke County partnered with the Clean Air Campaign and created Travel Smart Week as a way to showcase how choosing alternatives to driving alone can help improve the air we breathe.
Thanks to an expanding network of transportation alternatives, including Athens Transit, sidewalks, and bike lanes, individuals can travel with increasingly less dependency on their cars. Everyone is encouraged to get out of their cars, enjoy the fresh air, get some exercise and Travel Smart!
Heidi Davison is the mayor of Athens-Clarke County and serves on the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center Board. Through their use of commute options programs in the past year, Athens-Clarke County Unified Government employees have kept more than 8,000 pounds of pollution out of the air we breathe.
It's incredible to think that Earth Day turns 40 today. But as we blow out the candles, it's certain that Earth Day is far from being "over the hill." The movement toward environmental sustainability is celebrated every day in Georgia by employers, commuters and schools to the tune of 800 tons of pollution kept out of the air we breathe.
In some ways, Earth Day transcends many of the important days on our calendars:
It's like New Year's Day, when we resolve to make changes that make us better stewards of the place we call home.
Earth Day is like the Super Bowl, when champions are crowned for their accomplishments.
Telemanager of the Quarter Connie Hickey, Director of Information Services at ADP (L), with Clean Air Campaign Alternative Work Arrangement Specialist Erin Clark (R).
It's like President's Week, too, with an eye toward the big decisions and the key figures that make history.
It can even bear similarities to Tax Day, when fiscal responsibility is top of mind.
It's like a wedding anniversary, commemorating the start of something special and the journey toward something extraordinary.
Another way to look at it is like Labor Day, in that we've still got a lot of work to do to achieve our shared goals.
Earth Day can also resemble Halloween sometimes, when we discover the scary facts about neglecting our home state.
And it's also like Thanksgiving, when we get together and express our gratitude for all that has been done in Georgia by 1,600 employers, tens of thousands of Georgia commuters, hundreds of schools and dozens of partners to improve our quality of life.
Earth Day is every day. And when more Georgia employers, commuters and schools choose to think in these terms, the place we call home is made better … for us to enjoy today and for future generations to enjoy tomorrow.
Happy New Year and welcome to the next decade. Coming off an economic meltdown in 2009 on par with the Great Depression, it has been a lean year for good news in Georgia. Let’s gear up for a fresh start.
What's in store for 2010 on the transportation and air quality front? Lots of unfinished business on transportation, and what will likely be new and tougher regulations on air quality, including first-ever regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.
Consider this a preview of coming attractions of what we're watching for in policymaking circles over the next 12 months:
Georgia Transportation Funding
Georgia policymakers have been stuck in what seems like an endless loop of discussion on how to fund transportation in our state without ever moving to a conclusion. A lot has been said on the subject but not much has gotten done. Last session there were significant changes made within GDOT, and its new Planning Director just released this report as a vision for transportation infrastructure across the state for the next 2-3 three decades. The report leverages the work of McKinsey last year and its IT3 findings last year. It’s long (77 pp), but worth a read, at least the Executive Summary.
There are lots of ideas on the table to get Georgia moving: a statewide master list of projects and a commitment to transit, but these projects need funding in order to become real. And the State has been under-investing on transportation for decades, compared to its peers. As the report points out, at current levels of funding, “over the next 20 years, congestion costs across all of Georgia’s metro areas will increase dramatically, and many transit services will be reduced or eliminated due to lack of operating funds. In metro Atlanta, congestion costs per person will double.”
What is needed is new funding, “equivalent to a 1 percent sales tax statewide, in addition to a robust approach to tolls.” Will this be the year that transportation funding legislation clears the gauntlet and the voters will be allowed to decide the issue? We’ll see. For many, “election year” and “new taxes” don’t necessarily go together.
Federal Transportation Funding Reauthorization
The federal funding mechanism for how we fund transportation has been broken for years. The Federal Highway Trust fund is spitting foam, paying out more than it is taking in with gas tax revenues – hardly a winning combination. This funding was scheduled to be reexamined this past fall, but given all the lofty issues in play in Washington, Congress applied a few band-aids and put it on the shelf until 2010. When it is revisited, what will the next chapter in our nation's transportation policy look like? How do we fund transportation beyond the motor fuel tax? Mileage-based fees? How can we wring more efficiency out of the systems we already have?
Air Quality Standards … the Sequel
Something noteworthy happened last summer: the EPA reopened review of federal air quality standards for ground-level ozone (set in early-2008) years ahead of schedule. Several areas in Georgia failed to meet the standard before it was placed on hold, which has bought more time to make improvements. A new standard will be set by the feds, rooted in health and science studies about the effects of ground-level ozone exposure on public welfare. My money is on the new standard being tougher than the previous one. The proposal comes out in the next couple of weeks, and the EPA can expect lots of comments and lawsuits. Meanwhile, air quality standards for an unprecedented number of other pollutants are now in the process of being tightened (sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, toxics). But the real game changer is the fact that EPA is poised to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from millions of stationary and mobile sources never before regulated … potentially the most sweeping environmental regulation in history.
2010 holds the promise of a year of big changes that affect the future course on transportation and air quality. Much more to come…
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