The 2009 Curb Your Car Week fall event took place the week of October 4 to 10, 2009. During that week, 104 residents from Brighton and Rochester registered their pledge to walk, bike, carpool, or ride the bus for at least a day as an alternative to drive their car.
Survey results
(104 registered participants; 53 reporting their results.)
- Total Miles saved: 4,413 miles!
- Gallons Saved: 190 gallons (Based on individual MPG )
- Pounds of CO2 saved: 3,610 pounds (Based on 19 lbs per gallon)
Miles saved per activity
- Carpooling: 1,183
- Combining trips: 1,110
- Not going somewhere you normally go: 682
- Biking: 547
- Telecommuting:318
- Bus: 308
- Walking: 247
- Other (includes motorcycling): 18
Top commuters
- Carpooling: 365
- Combining trips: 400
- Not going somewhere you normally go: 400
- Biking: 145
- Telecommuting:100
- Bus: 170
- Walking: 40
- Other (includes motorcycling): 10
In their own words
My 2 neighbors and I combine errands on a regular basis. When I pick up my CSA veggies I get eggs for both neighbors and a friend of one neighbor. The person I have the CSA share with and I take turns getting the veggies/eggs. While picking up veggies I do my shopping at Abundance and offer to get items for my neighbors as well. Growing up my mom always combined her errands so I had a great role model. We chose the location of our home to be close to the things we do routinely — work, library, YMCA, friends, church. We lived for one year in Germany without a car and found it to be very freeing and much more fun riding buses, UBahn (subway) and trains. We rented cars on occasions and for some trips as our children were young. I grocery-shopped with friends with cars or got less at any one time. We loved that there were bike lanes and even separate street lights for the bikes increasing safety. Thanks for organizing this project.
I love this program. I would like to try and get my company involved for the springtime event. If you have any ideas to encourage participation, please let me know! Thanks.
Great project! I only work 3 1/2 miles from home so working from home two days doesn’t add up to much. And my total overall isn’t big either, but we walk if we can and I always, always combine trips. So over time I hope I’m making a difference!
I found that it was difficult erasing a lot of miles! Unfortunately, I teach, so I cannot telecommute. No one lives near me anymore, so it would be a waste of gas and way out of anyone’s way to come pick me up. I looked into the bus schedule and found that I would have to leave when I normally wake up, and I would still be an hour late to work! But maybe it was just the computer program acting weird? It did feel good to not run out of the house for unneeded trips, though, and forced me to economize! I probably also saved a lot of money that would have been spent had I taken those trips! Thank you for forcing me into thinking about it more!
It seems like you should ask total number of days driven to work this week. Also the first week of October starts to push it weather-wise and morning daylight for bike commuting.
This is a great idea. We should do it more than once/year. The weather was the pits and didn’t lend one to walking or biking as much as I would have liked, I’ll continue to walk/bike and combine trips as able.
Calculating how many miles I save by telecommuting is confusing because I work for more than one employer who never requires me to be physically present and wouldn’t have space for me if I showed up. This doesn’t feel like “saving” to me, so I didn’t enter anything in that category. If I had, it would be 100 mi. + for the week.
Thanks for all of your efforts to show us simple ways to save the planet. I think it was a great event. A few simple changes in the way that i thought about my trips made a big difference. Of course,it would have been even more effective if the weather were nicer but I still did a bit.
I vaguely knew this was going on but I can’t say I did much in particular. I guess what I’m saying is that I did not make a concerted effort. Guilty! Notes: Nice to see a fall version of this program. While a dedicated week is handy and effective in many ways it also has some limitations. For example, when the week is up can I go back to my old (presumably undesirable) habits? Idea: Consider adding a question about any new habit(s)/behavior(s) that resulted from participation in the activity.
I’m sorry I didn’t have the opportunity to pledge or register this time. Will hopefully get to the next time. However we are trying overall to walk more when there is say a school event which is in walking distance.
