Well the final results are in for the Commuter Challenge.  Here are the winners:

1 Employee Category Winner: Jeffrey J. Ellison, P.C. (24 points)
The winner gets $50 worth of Ann Arbor Gold

2-9 Employee Category Winners (all had 100% participation!): Above the Treeline, American Friends Service Committee-MI Criminal Justice Program, Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Dascola Barbers, Fair Housing Center of Southeastern Michigan, Fourth Ave. Birkenstock, Independent Thinkers, Inner Circle Media, Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, Not An Employee, University of Michigan–Lee Lab, GoKnow! Inc., Richner & Richner and The Whole Brain Group.
The winning orgs will get a Tea Tasting from Arbor Teas.  We will probably have a couple of tastings to accommodate all of the winners

10-24 Employee Category: 3-way tie! ApplEcon LLC, Survey Sciences Group, LLC, EWRE PUORG
The winning orgs will each get a Pizza Party from Cottage Inn!

25-99 Employee Category: UM Center for the Child and the Family
The winning org gets Coffee from Espresso Royale and Donuts from the Washtenaw Dairy!

100-499 Employee Category: University of Michigan - CoE - AOSS (43.0% Participation)
The winning org gets free 10 minute massage coupons from Relax Station for anyone in the winning organization that participated in the Commuter Challenge.

500+ Employee Category: Thomson Reuters (13.0% Participation)
The winning org gets a free coupon for a movie at the Michigan Theater for anyone in the winning organization that participated in the Commuter Challenge.

Want to see the Commuter Challenge through the eyes of someone who lived it?  You can by checking out Cedric Richner’s Commuter Challenge Blog. Cedric works for Richner and Richner as a fundraising consultant.

Here are a couple of snippets:

“May 1: Today is the beginning of my vow to not use my car for the entire month. I walked down to the bus stop, chest thrust out- nose in the air- and dismissively eyed the mass of humanity in their gas guzzling behemoths. I could practically hear them cackling with glee as they raced through the streets relentlessly pursuing their demonic mission to destroy the earth with their over the top, self absorbed singular focus on sucking the planet’s resources dry one commuter, one commute at a time. . . .”

“May 5: Today marks the day of my first official client visit via my bike. I was about to leave on the three mile ride to the client site when a co-worker told me that she was going to be driving right by where I needed to go… What could I do? What would you have done? . . .”

“May 7: Warning! Beware of any company that employees a guy named Rooney, William
Vice President, Security Strategy and Special Operations… You just know that you are going to be in for a bad experience. Rooney, William works for a company called “Amtrak”. You might have heard of it…”

Read Cedric’s Commuter Challenge blog here

Here’s another post from Washtenaw County employee Stacy Ebron about the Commuter Challenge:

Thank goodness for the Commuter Challenge. I started biking to work last summer and continued through the fall.  I’ll admit the winter months were challenging and I finally decided in early December that winter biking in Michigan was too much for me.

The Commuter Challenge gave me the motivation I needed to dust off my bike again and resume biking to work.  On days when the weather is not cooperative, I decided to catch the bus.

This month, I even learned how to put my bike on the bus for days when biking to work was not practical/convenient, but biking from work was.  What I learned from this experience is that taking the bus is more convenient than I thought.  Even on days when I have to travel from work to visit a client site, I have found that for some locations, I can catch the bus with my bike and then bike home the client site.

I still wish the bus came more frequently, but I realized that the bus ride really only adds about 10 minutes to my regular commute to work.  The savings on gas, the benefit to my personal health and to the health of the environment are definitely worth the 10 extra minutes.

Thanks for the challenge I needed to discover that there are even more alternatives to driving to work than I had considered.

All I can say is . . . wow.

We just meet the Commuter Challenge goal of logging 200,000 sustainable miles for May.

Driving 200,000 miles is the equivalent to burning 317 barrels of oil!

That’s enough energy to power 12 homes for an entire year!

Again, wow.

FYI, I got this info through this Environmental Impact Calculator

I am so excited!  I just checked the Commuter Challenge homepage and saw that we are 99.2% to our goal of 200,000 sustainable miles for the month of May!  And we still have 3 days to go!

Last year, we logged 116,277 miles, so this is even better!

I chose the number 200,000 because it is approximately the number of people who fit in the big house plus the population or Ann Arbor.

But did you also know that 200,000 miles is more than twice the total square miles of Michigan?  And greater than the total square miles for the state of California?  That’s amazing!

So everyone, keep up the good work and keep logging your commutes.

This Citizen Post comes from Stacy Ebron.  Stacy works for Washtenaw County, as the Homeless Management Information Systems Coordinator.

How biking to work can help you lose weight and get your husband to do the dishes

Last year my husband encouraged me to start biking.  He had been biking for about a year and really wanted it to be an activity that we could do together.  I agreed to go bike shopping with him.  After the first trip, he came home and did the dishes.  After the second trip to look at bikes, he folded clothes.  I soon thought I was on to something.  On the third trip I found a comfort bike that I loved and decided not to hold out for the chance to see him mop.

My adventure in biking started slowly.  At first, I started with a trip to the mall and back which was about a mile.  Gradually, I worked my way up about a mile each week and then set a goal to bike to work.  After a few weekends practicing the commute in partial increments, I finally believed that I could make it there and back (8-10 miles roundtrip depending on the route).  I felt such a sense of accomplishment that I began biking to work 2-3 days a week.  After 4 months, I lost 30 pounds, gained some new leg muscles, and a great sense of pride in myself for achieving a healthier lifestyle, and contributing to the environment.   This change led to more quality time for my husband and I and motivated him to bike to work more frequently and to continue through the winter months (I’m still working on this).  I encourage people to find a bike that is comfortable for them and then set small goals to work up to fabulous results.  I had forgotten how much fun I had as a child riding my back, but it all came back to me.  Enjoy the ride!

–Stacy

Some of you might be wondering which employees have logged the most sustainable commutes on the Commuter Challenge.  Here’s a look at the ten people who have logged the most commutes so far:

Arthur Greenspoon, Mathematical Reviews: 27 points
Vineet Yadav, EWRE PUORG: 27 points
Carson Bishop, Michigan Theater: 26 points
Erika Roesler, University of Michigan - CoE - AOSS: 25 points
Mark Hubbard, University of Michigan Nursing: 25 points
Brian Hunter, Michigan Theater: 24 points
Eric Harding, University of Michigan - CoE - AOSS: 24 points
Abhishek Chatterjee, EWRE PUORG: 24 points
Nancy Stone, City of Ann Arbor: 24 points
Alex Pineau, People’s Food Cooperative: 24 points

It’s so great to see such a diversity of people and organizations in the top ten!

During the Commuter Challenge this year, getDowntown will select one special person to win the Super Commuter Award.

The award is a bunch of goodies from downtown businesses as well as recognition as the most super commuter out there!  Please note: you or the person you nominate must be competing in the Commuter Challenge in order to be eligible for this prize.

To see who’s been nominated and to nominate your co-worker go here: Super Commuter Nominations

Here’s a Curb Your Car Month Post from Ann Arbor Googler Vicki Chan.

Here’s how Vicki describes herself:

As an AdWords associate for Google, I assist AdWords advertisers with their accounts and online marketing strategies. I graduated from Yale University with a degree in Sociology. I hail from Oakland, California and love to babysit, play Ultimate Frisbee and make bad jokes. (Mostly puns.)

Here’s Vicki’s Post:

Hybrid is the word of the day

This summer, yours truly will be playing with a club ultimate Frisbee team in Ann Arbor called Hybrid. To commute to those practices, I just bought a sweet Trek Multirack Women’s Hybrid bike in April. It’s no surprise that I’m also considering purchasing a Hybrid vehicle somewhere down the line. When I decide to have a kid, it’ll only be right to name her Hybridia, or Hybrid if he’s a boy.

I recently moved to Ann Arbor to start work with the Google office, and chose a friendly, family neighborhood apartment about 2 miles away from the office. During the winter and snow, I rode the Ann Arbor city bus downtown (go 9 and 9U!). Dragging myself out of bed in those below freezing temperatures was only made tolerable because of the bus drivers Ted and Dorien I met along the way. I just thought about how early they had to get up, and suddenly it didn’t seem so bad for me. Riding the bus with my fellow commuters in silent solidarity against the wind and sleet was actually a very unifying experience, but for the sake of sunshine, let’s fast forward to Spring and allow me to tell you why my commute is a hybrid commute, and not just a slushy snowy bus ride.

Last month at the start of Spring, I was ecstatic to finally wear short sleeves again and don my Wonderwoman helmet to break in my new bike. Riding west on Washington St. and seeing kids play roller hockey on the street and dogs chase obese squirrels up trees is downright blissful. After being indoors in an office building for most of the day, breathing fresh air and seeing playful creatures (both kids and squirrels alike) keeps me sane and grounded. I’m an outdoors person, and I’ve been known to chase a squirrel or two. Having that time before and after work to see and think about all things nature is really a necessary part of my day.

Commuting to work is all about choices, and I can’t ride to work every single day, but I can choose to diversify my sustainable commute options by using a hybrid strategy of self-powered commute options: riding my bike, using the bus system, and occasionally the nice long walk. An added incentive that pushes me to use sustainable commutes on rainy days is that Google supports the Self-Powered Commute program, which earns my nonprofit of choice $5 in donation for each day I walk, bike, or bus to work.

The short story is that I’m glad it’s Spring and I’m glad I get to bike again. I’m also glad for fat, but speedy squirrels, otherwise that Spring scene wouldn’t be quite as pleasant. Perhaps I can fit the chunky monkey squirrels with mini Hybrid bikes, so they can get some hybrid variety in their happy little lives too.

See you on those biking lanes!

Vicki

On Sunday there was an editorial in the Ann Arbor News that discussed the challenges faced by our region (and nation) as we try encourage people to drive less and bike and bus more.

The editorial describes many of the issues I face over here at the getDowntown program.  We need individuals to look at changing their habits so that demand for sustainable transportation increases.  We need regional policies and solutions that demonstrate a commitment to public transit and non-motorized transportation.

As the organizer of Curb Your Car Month, I can tell you that I am seeing both happening right now.  People are changing their habits.  $4.00 gas is a strong motivator.  An article in the New York Times illustrates that people are driving less and using public transportation more as a result of high gas prices.

And it is happening here as well.  Even before Curb Your Car Month the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority had record ridership numbers.  Even before Curb Your Car Month, more people have purchased go!passes from getDowntown than they did in the last several years.

And now as Curb Your Car Month comes to a close, I can tell you that many people have tried something new, be it biking, busing or carpooling and are seeing the benefits.  And these benefits, I believe, will extend far beyond this month.

I have a lot more to say on this topic, but limited time.  Hopefully, I can write more later, and you can, too.  I also wrote about this topic for Concentrate.  You can check out what I said here.

However, I would like to respond to the end the the News editorial, which states:

“Do we need demand before investment? Or do we build more rail systems and bus services and bike lanes, believing that people will use them if available?”

We need both.  And both are happening.  I fully believe that infrastructure sends a clear message to people saying “this is important and it matters to us.”  When there are bike lanes in the street, that let’s people know that bicyclists belong in the street.  When we create new Commuter Bus services, that means we want people to consider using other forms of transportation instead of driving their cars.

And frankly, I think it is unfair to say that because not that many people are using the Ann Arbor Chelsea Commuter Bus now it is a failure.  Initially the Link didn’t have great ridership numbers, and now it is doing very well.

Another piece of the puzzle for many people is assistance using public transportation.  It’s not always easy to figure out which bus route or bike route to take.  I hope that getDowntown can help employees when they do want to change their behavior.  All they have to do is email me!

Finally, I am extremely optimistic about the future of public transportation in this region.  I see many political, community, and business leaders pushing for rail systems and better non-motorized transportation.   I think we are well positioned to move forward in our region.  Let’s keep it moving!

That’s what I have to say on this topic.  I’d love to hear what you have to say.  Please comment or write a Letter to the Editor by emailing letters@annarbornews.com.