Party Friday May 1st 2009 – stories of success, learning, and challenges

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.

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:

Butch Byers helped organized participation at Oak Knoll school. There were more kids bike riding than he had ever seen, and the school ran out of bike rack space! Thanks to Leah Strichartz for the photos.

Joanna Jordan-Wu was able to eliminate the need to drive to meetings by taking some of her meetings as teleconferences (she’d love the ability to represent that in future Drive Less Challenge

Mitch Slomiak had used a bike for errands during the day, but was unfamilar with riding at night. For the Challenge, Mitch outfitted his bicycle with a good light, got reflectors, and rode his bicycle 4 miles at night to dinner with friends in Palo Alto

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.