Project Ideas: Kicking the Car Habit
Every day millions of commuters commute to work alone in their car.
A great way to reduce your consumption of fossil fuels and lower the amount of greenhouse gases you emit is to try an alternative way to commute to work. It can reduce traffic, which reduces how many cars are idling needlessly. It lessens the need for building new roads. New roads are costly and often require petroleum-based products such as tar and asphalt, as well as gas-powered heavy equipment to build them. There are many alternatives to single-occupancy commuting. Riding trains and buses, carpooling, vanpooling, biking to work, or walking are ways to be reduce the environmental impact of your daily commute.
 Through this project, your office will:
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
- Improve air quality
- Reduce the number of cars on the road and traffic congestion
- Save money and reduce wear and tear on your vehicle
- Get in shape
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Quick Facts: Making It Real
- In 2006, 4,103,837 North Carolinians commuted to work. Of that number, 80% of people drove alone versus only 12.5% that carpooled and 1% that took public transportation.
- Highway exhaust accounts for about 50% of the ozone-forming pollution in the state of North Carolina.
- There are 22 publicly owned urban and small urban transit systems and two regional transit systems operating in North Carolina.
- Transportation of all types accounts for more than 25% of the world's commercial energy use, and motor vehicles account for nearly 80% of that.
- Automobiles account for 30 % of all toxic air pollution in the US and are responsible for 60-80 % of urban air pollution.
Making an Impact: Equivalents you can use to set goals
- Public transportation reduces annual emissions of the pollutants that create smog - volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx)—by more than 70,000 tons and 27,000 tons respectively.
- A person riding public transportation can achieve an average annual savings of $8,481 per year by taking public transportation instead of driving.
- Cars emit carbon dioxide (CO2), a heat-trapping gas. In fact, they emit a lot of it: 20 pounds per gallon of gas burned
- Nationally, traffic delays chewed through 2.9 billion gallons of fuel.
Resources for your project:
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