The biggest winners in the Drive Less Challenge were the community and the environment.

Awareness

With over 120 participants and 1600 website page views, the Drive Less Challenge raised awareness of the fact that the single biggest change in our power to impact the climate is reducing single occupancy vehicle trips.

Action

We didn’t only raise awareness — we took action! Challenge participants logged nearly 500 green trips (walking, cycling, carpooling, bus and train), and over 5,000 green miles.

The impact on Carbon Emissions

• If the 120 participants continued to Drive Less throughout the year, the green practices would take the equivalent of 17 cars off the road, compared to a car-centric lifestyle

• Using non-scientific “napkin-math” estimates, these green practices used by the entire population of Menlo Park would account for the equivalent of about 15% of our current transportation carbon footprint. However, we don’t have a baseline of how green people were already, so we can’t say how much absolute savings it would represent.

On Friday May 1, Drive Less Challenges participants, sponsors and volunteers gathered together to celebrate a successful Drive Less Challenge.

Mayor Heyward Robinson spoke at the event. He is an experienced bicycle commuter. But he had never used SamTrans’ capability to take a bicycle on the bus, which makes it practical to get to destinations further from the bus stop. During the Drive Less Challenge, he took the opportunity to learn. He brought his bicycle, figure out how to get it onto the rack in front of the bus, and was able to get to and from a meeting in San Mateo county without driving.

Mayor Robinson talked about his experiences driving less

He also told the story of a community college student who from East Palo Alto who spends over 90 minutes taking transit to her community college in San Mateo County. Sometimes public transportation is much less practical and convenient than it should be – especially county lines. Mayor Robinson noted that obstacles that we become aware of as we focus on driving less can become opportunities to organize to improve alternatives to driving in our community.

It was exciting to hear Mayor Robinson, former Mayor Gail Slocum, and April Vargas, a member of a citizen advisory board for San Mateo County transportation, have getting interest from others in extending the Drive Less Challenge beyond Menlo Park and neighboring communities.

At the party, members of the community shared their own stories about what options they explored and what they learned:

Full bike racks at Oak Knoll School

Joanna Jordan-Wu held teleconferences instead of driving to meetings

Even people who have already taken some steps to drive less find that there is more to learn. By taking the opportunity to focus for the week, they found new, practical ways to reduce driving. Where there are obstacles like the shortage of bike racks at Oak Knoll, the Drive Less Challenge is an opportunity to focus attention and work to fill the gaps.

Thanks to Kepler’s for graciously hosting the event. Thanks to Jeanne Durnford, Mitch Slomiak and Carol McClelland for co-organizing the party.

The Drive Less Challenge was designed to stimulate friendly competition, and celebrate role models for green travel practices. The Challenge recognizes group participation, because much of our habits are formed in a social context. When the norm is to be green, it’s easiest to be green! Another goal is to show that there are may different ways to reduce one’s transportation footprint – cycling, walking, carpool, train, bus, combining trips – each of us has a different set of good choices for driving less.

Group leadership

These groups had the most active participation in the Drive Less Challenge.

City of Menlo Park – 8 participants, 41 trips
Oak Knoll School, 28 participants, 143 trips
Willows Neighborhood – 8 participants, 95 trips logged
Congregation Etz Chaim – 5 participants, 44 trips logged

These are the individuals who logged the most trips for these groups, blazing the trail for others.

City of Menlo Park – Kent Steffens, 24 trips
Oak Knoll School – Leah Strichartz, 34 trips
Willows Neighborhood, Tom Kabat, 18 trips
Etz Chaim, Gail Slocum, 15 trips

These are the winners in each school group – the individuals who logged the most green trips at schools with 3 or more participants:

Encinal: Cassandra Kopisch (6 trips, 42 mi)
M-A HS: Daniel Kopisch (9 trips, 199 mi)
Oak Knoll: Leah Strichartz (20 trips, 51 mi)
Peninsula: Mitch Slomiak (10 trips, 50 mi)
Stanford: Chris Mattenberger – (6 trips, 18 mi)
Stanford: Lisa Kwiatkowski (6 trips, 204 mi)

These are the winners in neighborhood groups – the individuals who logged the most green trips at schools with 3 or more participants:

Most green trips at neighborhoods with 3 or more participants
Willows: Tom Kabat (13 trips, 51 mi)
Downtown MP: Adina Levin (13 trips, 44 mi)

There were participants from these work groups: SAP, Acterra, City of Palo Alto, City of Menlo Park, PGE, NASA Ames, Stanford, Ning, HP, San Mateo County, and others.

And these faith communities – Menlo Park Presbyterian, Etz Chayim, Beth Am Congregation, Valley Presbyterian, Trinity Parish

Role Models for different sorts of green travel

Most green trips
1. Leah Strichartz: 20 trips
2. (tie) Butch Byers: 14 trips
2. (tie) Kent Steffens: 14 trips

Most green miles (train and bike)
1. Lanette Kozlowski: 309 miles
2. Caroline Dedeystere: 299 miles
3. Nien San Chaw: 284 miles

Most active walkers
Kent Steffens – 8 trips
Lisa Kwiatkowsi – 5 trips
Wendy Kuehl – 5 trips
Gail Slocum – 4 trips
April Bellamy – 4 trips
Gudrun Enger – 4 trips
Mitch Slomiak – 4 trips
Wendy Kuehn – 4 trips

Most active cyclists
Leah Strichartz – 17 trips
Manfred Kopisch – 13 trips
Butch Byers – 13 trips

Most frequent carpoolers
John Boyle – 8 trips
Kent Steffens – 5 trips
Robin Dusaint – 5 trips
Heather Nelson – 5 trips

Most frequent bus riders
Yevgeniy Lysyy – 6 trips
Delilah Cline – 5 trips
Lisa Kwiatkowski 4 trips

Most frequent train riders
Caroline Dedeystere – 6 trips
Lisa Kwiatkowski – 5 trips
Robin Dusaint – 5 trips

Trip chaining – most multi-destination green trips:
1. Wendy Keuhnl : 4 trips
2. Robin Dusaint: 3 trips

Prizes and sponsors
Winning individuals will receive prizes from one of the following retail sponsors, including: Avi Decorative Painting, Caltrain/Samtrans, Cheeky Monkey Toys, Green Zebra, Kepler’s Books, Menlo Velo, Peet’s Coffee and Tea, Commute.org, Reclaim, Red Hawk Real Estate, Roger Reynolds Nursery, Rosewood Sandhill Hotel and Spa.

Kepler’s generously donated its venue for the celebration on Friday, May 5.

The David Bohannon Group and The Daily News Group provided sponsorship for operation and advertising of the Drive Less Challenge.

The Menlo Park City Council showed leadership by all taking the Drive Less Challenge and serving as role models for the community.

Acterra, Peninsula Traffic Control Relief Alliance (Commute.org), the Sierra Club, and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition provided publicity support.

Volunteers

The Drive Less Challenge has been put together with 100% volunteer time and effort. Volunteers include coordinator Adina Levin, Menlo Park Green Ribbon Citizens’ Committee co-chairs Mitch Slomiak and Carol McClelland, and Uri Kogan,Jeanne Durnford, Carol McClelland, Kent Fields, Katie Ferrick, Kristin Kuntz Duriseti, Christine Hertzog, Patty Boyle, Gail Slocum, Mitch Slomiak, Joanna Jordan-Wu, Davena Gentry, Karen Wang, Heather Nelson, Suzanne Wilson, Bob Barrett, John Kadvany, Uri Kogan, Tom Kabat

Thanks to everyone who participated, sponsored, and volunteered to make this Challenge a success for our community.

The Challenge caused me to think hard about combining trips. This took more planning, even to walk portions of trips that included a car. Despite the high temperatures, I started earlier that week by biking to meetings and adding errands. Also, my trip reports did not demonstrate that in nearly every case I combined “civic” trips, at times by changing their schedules to allow that combining. Obstacles that I ran into included discontinuous bike paths; crossing El Camino & the railroad tracks; getting to certain dressy evening events on time other than by car; and San Jose meetings. I didn’t solve all of these.

Congratulations on completing the Drive Less Challenge!

On Friday night, May 1 at 7pm at Kepler’s is the Drive Less Challenge celebration. We’ll be honoring all participants, sponsors, volunteers, and challenge winners. It will be a family-friendly event. You don’t need to be present to be eligible for prizes, but winners who come to the party will have a choice of awards from local green businesses. Everyone who participated and made thoughtful changes in transportation is a big winner.

Party details

Friday, May 1
7:00 pm to 8:30pm (or possibly later)
Kepler’s Bookstore – at the corner of El Camino Real and Santa Cruz Avenue
Light Refreshments
Awards to residents, businesses, schools and faith communities that report the best results.
Recognize sponsors
Hear ‘Drive Less’ Stories…Get inspired!
Shop @ Keplers (support our sponsors!)

My experience with the Driveless Challenge was a positive one. Even though i was not able to walk or bike every day I believe the experience did heighten my awareness to reduce my driving. The main obstacles for me were scheduled meetings that I had to attend that did not provide a very good opportunity to walk or ride. Car pooling was always an option but only if others from my office were attending. Walking and biking did help me pay more attention to the environment around me especially from my perspective as a City Manager. I saw things in the various neighborhoods I crossed that need the City’s attention and I have an even higher opinion of our City’s beauty. The trees and well maintained homes and the cleanliness of our streets (thanks City crews).
Thank you for organizing a successful event that will carry on past the established timelines.

Glen Rojas

This post was submitted by Glen Rojas .

I rode (trolley) buses and walked all my life, and so I do now. I mean, I drive to my parents and for shopping. But I normally ride a bus to work: VTA #22 and SamTrans ##280 / 281 /297.

By the way, I am a bus driver myself; work for PCA, drive Caltrain shuttle, “Marsh road”, in Menlo Park. I work split shift and ride home in midday (6.3 miles one way). Generally, public transportation is awful here. But I am very lucky: whatever time I start or finish my work -I always have a bus to ride! VTAs #22 run “24/7″ (every 10…15 minutes in daytime (until about 7 PM) and every hour after midnight), and SamTrans ## either 280 or 281 or 297 run to East Palo Alto near “24/7″. While riding, I read newspapers or sometimes sleep. And I save my nice car.

I must fix my bike and sometimes ride it, too. Please note: where that is safe. Local bicyclists ride everywhere except freeways, don’t obey “Stop” signs and don’t respect drivers. Contrary, I ride only on bike lanes, on quiet residential streets, or on sidewalks (slowly!). Whatever way we live and move around, we don’t have to endanger ourselves and others.

Yevgeniy (“Eugene”) Lysyy, Palo Alto, CA.

Andy Cohen’s busy lifestyle requires a fair amount of driving. Civic activities in San Francisco and around the Bay Area, such as the Association for Bay Area Governments Conference, Redwood City Arts Council and the Tech Museum in San Jose required over 200 miles of driving during the week.

Andy was able to reduce driving alone by carpooling with Mayor Heyward Robinson for the ABAG conference. And he has been walking (with his dog Sheila) to local coffees, lunch meetings, city offices and library visits. Andy has also been able to reduce driving by combining errands and avoid some trips entirely by identifying alternatives to getting the tasks done.

It’s not realistic for most of us to eliminate driving entirely. With a little bit of thought, Andy has found ways to reduce driving – and get more exercise, fresh air, and friendly networking.

As Vice Mayor, nothing would please me more than displaying a tremendous reduction in solo car trips and car reliance over this week.

I believe I am the classic mid-market target in the green movement. I work a job in a different city, have two children who do not bike yet and I juggle schedules of daily life as does everyone.

The first two days of the challenge were ordinary. My children go to two different schools in a five mile radius which eliminates options of walking or biking (they don’t bike) and I had meetings that required me to drive. I evaluated the public transit options and found 2.5 hours of travel time to get me to meetings. With very little car pool option, this commitment was too large for the work demands.

Day three was a bit easier as I kept myself closer to home and cut down the travel miles. I did not need public transit.

During the weekend we walked to city events and successfully dropped our travel in cars. Monday I was able to avoid crazy meetings and was able to take CalTrain.

Not perfect, but something. Better schedule management is really the key to reducing car miles.

Great program idea! Thanks for pushing me in the right direction!

Richard Cline
Vice Mayor, Menlo Park

This post was submitted by Richard Cline.