Greetings and happy spring! We've put on our gardening gloves and dug deep for this edition of Merging Lanes with one goal: to plant thoughts of sustainable transportation in your mind. So, what's going in Georgia? Lots:

HB 1218 - Transportation Funding in Georgia
It came in like a lion. Will it go out like a lamb? The state transportation funding bill (HB 1218) that was introduced early in the legislative session has reached a critical point in the calendar, where it must move from the House to the Senate or be put on the shelf. The Transportation Investment Act of 2010 still has many details that need to be worked out, such as whether counties can opt out of the "regional" arrangement and how projects will be approved. In 2008, a different version of a transportation funding bill missed by three votes at the end of the session. In 2009, competing versions of transportation planning and funding bills could not be reconciled before the session ended. What are the odds that another legislative session will come and go without action on transportation funding? And for Georgia commuters and employers, what is the cost of another year of status quo?

Lane ends 2000 feet.

Friday is Ride MARTA Day
A grassroots movement is gaining momentum to build citizen support for MARTA as the transit agency comes to grips with a funding shortfall that is likely to result in service cuts by the start of summer that could affect thousands of patrons. "Ride MARTA Day" is coming up this Friday. If you can hop on a bus or ride the train to work this Friday, consider showing your support for MARTA.

Lane ends 1000 feet.

Actions Speak Loud
It's an understatement to say he leads by example in his role at The Clean Air Campaign. Hats off to Mark Telling, The Clean Air Campaign's Director of Finance since 2002, who just earned recognition as a Clean Air Commuter Champion.

He makes it look easy. Because it is. Preferred commuting modes? GRTA Xpress and telework. When asked why he does it, the predicted answer we thought we'd get from the seasoned finance professional would be savings on commute costs. But Mark says his motivation is simply to avoid the stress of driving alone in traffic. Mark's efforts at clean commuting have kept 25,000 pounds of pollution out of the air we breathe. Congrats!

Lane ends 500 feet.

Bumper Sticker Moment of Zen
When you're languishing in bumper-to-bumper traffic, the least the driver in front of you can do is give you something to ponder.

Thanks, biodiesel guy, for doing your part. Got any good pics of bumper stickers with traffic or sustainability messages that gave you a chuckle, or maybe sparked an epiphany? Send them our way and we'll share them in this space.

Merge

Clayton County’s bus service, C-TRAN, is scheduled to end March 31. This is a major hit to riders who rely on this service for their commute to work. Luckily, there are other options. The Clean Air Campaign wants to help make the transition to a new commute as seamless as possible for displaced C-TRAN commuters.

If you currently ride C-TRAN to work, there are some other commute options in your area that are worth investigating, such as riding an Xpress bus or joining or starting a vanpool or carpool. RideSmart can help match you with other commuters who live and work near you. If you want to carpool with someone who lives near you but works in a different area, you could try carpooling to the nearest MARTA station.

To learn more about your options and find out ways you may be able to offset the cost of your new commute, contact us by calling 1-877-CLEANAIR or e-mailing Daniel Jessee at DJessee@CleanAirCampaign.org. We’re here to help.

Calling all employers: sign up for the Alternative Work Arrangement Webinar on March 25. It’s our first Webinar of the year and will teach you how your company can be successful with compressed work weeks and telework programs.

Many of you have attended The Clean Air Campaign’s Lunch and Learn events in past years, but for 2010, we’re shaking things up a bit. First, say goodbye to the name Lunch and Learn. This program will now be called the Employer Program Education Series. The focus is on helping employers get the most out of their commute options programs. An additional change this year will be the format of this series. To make Clean Air Campaign events more congruent with what we represent – less traffic and cleaner air – we’ll be hosting most of them online as Webinars. In many cases, you’ll no longer need to drive to an event; we’ll come to you via your computer. This will save you time, help keep pollution out of the air we breathe and even make it possible for you to access our presentations online at a later date, whether you missed them the first time or want to watch again. So what are you waiting for? Sign up today for our first Webinar of the year!

Hats off to Harold Reheis, a founding father of The Clean Air Campaign and former chairman, who yesterday officially rolled off The Clean Air Campaign's Board of Directors after some 15 years of service.

Before the mission became a movement centered on less traffic and cleaner air, Reheis remembers working in the mid-90s "just to understand how Atlanta could meet tighter standards" for ground-level ozone. "We focused on wringing everything we could out of stationary sources," he explained, referring to the emissions that come from fixed objects like smokestacks. "We realized we had to work at everything in order to reach the goal."

According to Reheis, the best experiment to show how vehicle traffic and air quality are so closely linked happened when the Olympics came to metro Atlanta in the summer of 1996. It was during this two-week stretch that two important situations were recorded:

1. The Georgia DOT found traffic congestion was held at bay by area employers who led the charge to help their employees remain productive without having to drive in to worksites at rush hour

2. The Georgia EPD found that air quality was noticeably improved during this window, with no violations of the ground-level ozone standard while the Olympic torch was lit

Harold Reheis, a founding member of The Clean Air Campaign and former chairman of the Board of Directors, receives a plaque commemorating his 15 years of service.

In his role as both a regulator with the Georgia EPD and an architect of The Clean Air Campaign, Reheis expressed to his colleagues on the Board of Directors the significance of creating a non-regulatory organization, focused on voluntary actions, to cause change. "The balance of regulatory controls and voluntary commute options programs showed that a plan could be drafted and acted on to meet air quality standards," Reheis said. "I'm excited about where we've been and what we've achieved. We need to keep working to identify more ways to solve the problem."

On behalf of the entire organization and all the people you've influenced in your work for less traffic and cleaner air, thanks, Harold, for the passion and the vision you brought to improve our quality of life.

Citing widespread broadband connectivity and a robust infrastructure, Forbes magazine again ranked the metro Atlanta region among the "most wired" in the U.S. Atlanta held firm at #2 for the second straight year, a strong showing in a region that is ripe for telework programs. But what is surprising is which city ranked ahead of Atlanta on this list. Hint: it's not in the Silicon Valley.

With a punishing commute that landed Atlanta on another Forbes list recently for all the wrong reasons, it's great that the region is getting recognition for the availability of broadband Internet that helps employees and employers alike boost productivity, save on overhead and commuting costs and get out of traffic. The availability of the Georgia Telework Tax Credit and consulting services provided at no cost by The Clean Air Campaign is icing on the cake for employers. We just need more employers to get on board.