How You Can Help Improve Transportation

How You Can Help Improve Transportation

The following 12 activities will be a great help in solving our transportation problems. Do as many of these as you can, and encourage your friends and family to do the same. Together we can make a difference!

1. Get a Better Vehicle --- If you need to drive, replace your SUV with one of the new hybrid gas and electric cars - and you could save as much as $11,000 on gas and produce 107 fewer tons of carbon dioxide.   The new efficient hybrids are reliable and drive just like standard cars. If you make no other transportation changes in your life, this one will make a huge difference.

2. Walk to Your Destination --- If it's a reasonable distance, you'll save energy and improve your health. Doctors say that regular walking is the best form of exercise, helping to control weight and build a healthy heart. Walking also helps to reduce tension and stress.   Get some good walking shoes, dress for the weather, and hoof it!
3. Ride Your Bike --- If you need to travel a greater distance, take your bike. Again, it’s good exercise, it feels great and it’s fun.   During the dead of winter, bicycling may be difficult, but for the rest of the year a bike is fine.

4. Take a Bus --- Many communities have a public transit system. We all need to use and support public transit, because if these systems are used adequately they are more energy efficient than cars, and they help reduce wasteful traffic congestion. If we increase their use, the governments will increase the frequency and convenience of the schedules, which in turn will further increase their use, thereby discouraging individual car and truck traffic. For long-distance travel, try to use trains, buses or group shuttle services. (see Bus Services in Northeast Wisconsin)

5. Plan Ahead --- Reduce your driving by planning ahead and combining several small trips into one, whenever possible. Over a year's time, your savings in energy, money and time could be substantial, while your part in traffic congestion shrinks.

6. Live Near Your Place of Work or School --- If it takes more than 30 minutes to walk to your workplace or school, perhaps you could move closer.

7. Recreate Close to Home --- Plan your vacations close to home and get to know all the highlights of your local parks, museums, libraries, art galleries, theaters and other attractions. Skip the tropical cruise, the road trip to Alaska, the cultural tour of New England. We have many wonderful sights and destinations right here to enjoy. Boost the local economy, save energy, reduce traffic congestion and relax at home. Read a good book!

8. Support Sidewalks --- Many communities in Northeast Wisconsin do not require new developments to install sidewalks, which results in large urban areas with no comfortable pedestrian walkways or access. People should not have to walk everywhere in the roads, across grassy areas or across huge parking lots. They should be provided with their own “transportation corridor.” Winter can be especially discouraging, when pedestrians have few shoveled areas to walk, even when the winter weather is fine for walking. It would be far better to reduce the width of new city streets, and use the savings for sidewalks instead. Our communities would be much healthier as a result.

9. Demand Higher Fuel Efficiency Standards --- The gas-guzzling of most U.S. cars and trucks is an embarrassment for our country. We’re being thoughtless about our children’s needs and future. Each of us needs to demand that our elected officials set much higher fuel-efficiency standards. The technologies already exist, but Americans are stuck in a rut, glorifying “big, powerful trucks” for everyday use. This is not sustainable behavior.

10. Demand Better Transportation Planning --- Right now, most government transportation managers are focused on building more roads and highways. They are not promoting wiser, healthier, more efficient transportation methods. Each of us needs to demand that our elected officials support alternative, better transportation methods, as well as strict landuse zoning to reduce urban sprawl.

11. Limit Your Family Size --- Each person requires transportation. Our human population is rapidly rising to levels which make it difficult to provide adequate transportation while sustaining a healthy environment. If each couple limited themselves to no more than 2 children, our world’s population could stabilize and support everyone without conflict or suffering.

12. Educate Your Children --- You can help teach young people the values of walking, biking and mass transit, and the importance of efficient landuse planning. Perhaps the new generation will finally get it right!

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