Drive Less Challenge 2011 Celebration

On Saturday night, Drive Less Challenge participants gathered to celebrate a successful event, to congratulate award winners, and to thank those who contributed to a successful event.

 

The Drive Less Challenge continued to expand in 2011, with many more participants doing less solo driving, traveling green, and reducing carbon emissions. The 2011 Drive Less Challenge had ten participating communities, with about 900 participants taking 9000 green trips. All together, participants racked up about 90,000 green miles, the equivalent of nearly four trips around the globe. This displaced about 45,000 pounds of CO2 emissions. Participation was more than three times the level in 2010, in the number of participants and amount of green travel.

Congratulations to the prize winners for Drive Less Challenge 2011 overall:

The Drive Less Challenge offers many ways to win, since people have different choices available to them. Some people are able to avoid driving alone completely; others need to travel places where there is no good alternative to driving. People who have access to transit for the routes they travel can take the bus or train. People who are healthy and able can bike and walk. People who share travel plans with neighbors can carpool.

Participants shared stories about their Drive Less Challenge Experience. Tom Fensterman of Los Altos used to be an avid mountain biker, but hadn’t ridden a bike since surgery on his ankle. He used the Drive Less Challenge as motivation to ride to the train in Mountain View and take Caltrain to his job in the city, getting exercise and reducing stress.

Eva Iglesias talked about ways that she encouraged over 200 kids in the San Carlos schools to participate with public recognition for biking and walking to school.

Everyone who took the effort to consider their own travel patterns and to take advantage of green travel is a winner. Our community as a whole is a winner when we make changes to reduce driving and save the environment.