How looking at how you get to work can save your cash, your environment and even your health

Many of us are used to the convenience of our personal vehicles, and the concept of freedom and independence that we attach to them. The truth, though, is that there are costs to be paid for our ‘vehicular addiction’ that we often don’t consider.

More cars on the roads mean a larger environmental footprint; there is no denying that emissions add up and negatively impact the world around us. In addition, large volumes of vehicles result in greater wear and tear on road infrastructure, making maintenance expenditures (and therefore taxes) higher for residents. And then there is the cost to our well-being. Air quality becomes an issue, particularly for people with sensitivities to the chemicals emitted by vehicles. And the tendency we have developed to take our car on every tiny trip just because it is fast means that many of us are not getting the kind of exercise we need to stay fit and healthy.

photo credit: djking

Consider, if you will, the following:

Your wallet: According to Statistics Canada, the average Canadian household spends over $12,000 per year on transportation alone – more than food and second only to housing. Even those driving as little as 12,000 km per year are looking at annual driving costs of between approximately $8000 and $10,000, varying with the make and model of the car. The more you share your commute via carpooling, using public transit, cycling around town or just plain ol’ walking, the more you save.

Your health: The congestion and volume of traffic on the roads can be a major source of stress for many drivers. Studies have consistently shown that employees who commute by means other than a single-occupancy vehicle demonstrate lower levels of stress, higher morale, and lower blood pressure.

The environment: The environment is everyone’s business. Using fewer cars means less pollution, conservation of habitat, and less demand for new roads and parking lots. Using fewer cars also means less production of greenhouse gases, a major contributor to climate change. When you carpool, take mass transit, cycle or walk – even once or twice a week – you can feel proud that you are helping the environment.

Many of you have already made the switch, and we applaud you for your insight and initiative! In fact, Edmontonstories.ca has launched a terrific contest that invites you to tell us all about how Edmonton moves you. What do you do to Get in Step, Get in Gear, Get on Board, or Get Together? What do you love about your commute? We want to hear from YOU.

Submissions can be in the form of a poem, a moment/story, picture slideshow, essay, video or even a Haiku! Get creative!

Tell us and you could win a Grand Prize of a twelve-month ETS pass or your choice of:

A $100 gift certificate to your running/walking/bike shop of choice
A $100 Future Store gift certificate
Two $50 gift cards for your favourite coffee shop of choice
A 4GB iPod Shuffle

The contest runs from Monday, August 9 until Friday, September 3, 2010. For contest information or to enter, please visit http://www.edmontonstories.ca/sharing/move.

Remember – even making one small change in your daily or weekly transportation routine can make a difference. Buy a couple of transit tickets, check out the City’s free carpool matching program (www.carpool.ca), pump up the tires on your bike, or tie up your laces and start walking. Challenge yourself to give it a try and let us know all about it!

One of the interesting things about ecomobility (getting around via people powered options) is that many of the people who do it are not thinking about being more environmentally friendly. During the spring and summer I bike, inline skate, or walk as much as possible for three main reasons: it’s cheaper than either a car or transit, I get to work out on my commutes leaving me more time for other things, and I feel better after a bike ride through the river valley. In the winter I rely more on the bus and walking. I have to say walking onto a pre-warmed bus always seems a lot better than standing outside and scraping ice off my car windows.

On Saturday, June 19th I hope to find out what other people think of when they are inspired by ecomobility. Active Edmonton, Walkable Edmonton, and Mountain Equipment Co-op’s Bike Fest 2010 are putting on a Car-Free Day from noon – 4 p.m. The event is taking place along 102 Ave. between 104 St. (the Downtown Farmer’s Market) and 100 St. The area will be closed to cars, but open to the creativity of Edmontonians who enter the Park(ed) Stall Contest. Individuals or groups can register and decorate a parking stall along the road, and visitors will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite stall.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what Edmontonians come up with; especially after the little preview park that the organizers (Dot from Active Edmonton, Ian from Walkable Edmonton, Karly and Corinne from Mountain Equipment Co-op) set up last week.

I already know I’ll be stopping at the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues to see their living local stall “intersection repair” and get a glass of lemonade, in my reusable mug of course.

What do you see when you think of ecomobility?

To find more out about Park(ed) Day, and to register for a parking stall visit www.edmonton.ca/activeedmonton

This week is a busy one around Edmonton. Not only is it the beginning of bike month, but it’s also Environment Week and the National Commuter Challenge. I’ve been out with the ETS Community Relations team at several events, promoting the new bike racks featured on additional bus routes (maybe you came by and entered your name in for a draw of a new Dahon foldie bike). Folks from the Office of Environment (Karen and fellow blogger Colin) were there with information about the CO2RE program, as well as well as Chris from Sustainable Transportation, answering questions about all of the different alternative modes of transportation like carpooling, cycling or walking (who would have thought that walking would ever be considered an alternative form of transportation?).

What always comes out of events like these (what do you expect when you put a transit guy next to environment and sustainable transportation) is a conversation about Edmonton’s current transportation situation and its longterm sustainability. Did you know that Edmonton has one of the highest car dependence rates in Canada and citizens are spending more time in their cars, driving longer distances? This is one of our city’s biggest challenges that we’re always trying to address across all departments, be it through services provided by ETS, programs provided by Transportation, Environment, or Community Services (think Walkable Edmonton or LocalMotion), or through policy like our Transportation Master Plan.

But how are we as residents of Edmonton trying to spend less time in our cars? What is helping us make different decisions when it comes to deciding how to get around the city? When are we choosing to take transit, carpool, walk or ride a bike? These decisions are part of an every day challenge that we all face when trying to make our city more sustainable. Sure, participating in events like the Commuter Challenge are great ways to start, but what happens once the week is up? What about all the other weeks of the year?

We’ve begun to ask Edmontonians for their stories about how they choose to travel every day using more sustainable modes of transportation. James, an employee in our IT department, was the first to share his story, explaining how transit, in particular the recent expansion of the LRT system, has helped him reduce his dependency on his vehicle. Instead of driving to work, now he can take the LRT decreasing the time it takes him to get to work by up to 50%. But hey, don’t take my word for it. Hear it from the man himself.

This is the first of what will become a series of videos and stories about how different Edmontonians are choosing alternative transportation modes. We’re calling it The Every Day Challenge, building on the principles of events like the Commuter Challenge, except we plan for this project to be ongoing; our end goal being a city where our first choice for transportation is always the most sustainable one, be it taking transit more, walking, cycling, carpooling, or any other alternative mode that lessens our dependence on the single occupant vehicle trip.

Stay tuned to the blog as we post more stories from Edmontonians like you who are already making these choices. You can also check out the event and discussion on Facebook (this one is hosted by the Transit Rider’s Union of Edmonton) or add your thoughts to the growing conversation on twitter (official hashtag #yegEDW, but also check out what people have been saying at #yegtransit #yegbike #yegwalk). Coming up next, tales from your not-so-average pedestrian and a self-professed fair-weather cyclist who still managed to ride all but three months of the winter.

What could be more Albertan than a snow storm hitting the city two days into my car free trial? What could be more frustrating than injuring my knee two weeks before I commit to going car free? But a little bit of snow wasn’t about to stop me (or the many other Edmontonians who kept walking and cycling during this short reminder of winter weather).

Spring snowstorm photos: Tom Young

To be honest, I thought I would have an easier time with this whole experiment. I have lived in Edmonton without a car and managed just fine with public transit and my bike in the past so I was quite surprised when I added up my mileage and discovered that, although I had not personally driven anywhere, I had accumulated the same amount of car kilometres as I had cycling kilometres. I was even more surprised, this time pleasantly, to learn that my bike and walking trips had saved me $50 regardless of whether I would have normally used the car or taken the bus.

Overall, I avoided four trips in the car as the only occupant (I car pooled instead); three car trips were completely avoided (including walking to and from the Muttart bedding plant sale with an armful of plants); and I avoided seven bus trips (walking or biking instead).

Here’s what I found most interesting though: spending time walking and cycling increased the time I spent with my husband because we would arrange to meet and then travel home together, something we wouldn’t do with either the bus or the car. And showing up on my bike to visit my three-year-old niece inspired her to practice riding her bike in the basement. We would have gone outside except for the snow on the ground. It also improved my mood and when I got home from each trip I was more willing to do other activities, like cleaning, because of my increased overall activity level.

So how much did I reduce my footprint by? Well, I started with a footprint of 7.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide. If I was to consistently maintain the reduced car trips that I did for the past two weeks my footprint would be 6.5 tonnes of CO₂. The reduced number of trips on public transit would further reduce my footprint by 0.1 tonnes for a total of 6.4 tonnes.

Not bad. If I was to pay an organization to offset this amount it would cost between $140 and $240 depending on which organization I chose. I’m going to keep trying to reduce my footprint though, rather than offset it. Mission #2 is no meat.

If you are looking for some resources or events relating to reducing car trips in Edmonton check out the 2009 Local Motion project in Parkallen and Park(ed) Day on June 19^th.

I have been attempting to function without using my car for almost two weeks now. Some things have been really easy; I don’t like to drive to work anyway given the convenience and lower cost of transit and the even lower cost of riding my bike. Already though there have been some challenges, like the large dump of snow we had on May 4th, and the fact that I crashed my bike a couple weeks ago and I’m still suffering from some pretty severe knee pain.

photo credit: sahlgoode

So far, I’m still car-free but I have carpooled twice. And my husband took the car to a composting workshop held at the John Janzen Nature Centre. He was all set to bike until we realized that getting a compost bin home on the bike was not something that either of us is currently equipped for.

In the meantime, I have read about two very cool places that use bikes to generate electricity. The Crowne Plaza hotel in Copenhagen has attached power generators to the stationary bikes in their fitness room. As a guest in the hotel you can receive a meal voucher if you generate 10 watts of electricity on the bike. This takes different lengths of time depending on your fitness level but on average it will take about 15 minutes.

The second place is a health club, Go Green Fitness, in Orange, Connecticut. They attached generators to their 25 spin bikes and sell the electricity generated back to the grid. At the end of each spin session they announce how much electricity was generated. So far they have reached a maximum of 1122 watts.

Inspired, I looked up whether this was possible for my personal bike in my home, and it is, but not with the money, time, or expertise that I have. But imagine the applications for the future if we could adapt this in our homes? You could run your toaster by pedaling your bike. Or even better, your kids would have to generate the electricity for their video games by pedaling a bike while they play. We could get fit and get green at the same time.

Until this technology becomes available in my home I’ll stick to saving money and helping the environment by traveling the city on my bike thus allowing me to avoid gas costs and gym memberships.

The city of Edmonton Youth Council, in cooperation with the wonderful staff of City Clerk’s Office and Councillor Iveson, recently put on the second annual “Mock Council Meeting”. This event, originally established to educate on the procedural matters of City Council, was again a huge success and featured 3 items on the agenda: A business revitalization funding request, an administrative inquiry into the possibility of a 24-hour transit system, and finally a city-wide ban on trans fats.

Here are some of the photos from the event.

Next on the horizon for the Policy Subcommittee is an exciting fact-finding project about youth in Edmonton. The details currently in the works, but we hope to launch an Edmonton-wide survey of junior high and high school students to find out what youth want Edmonton to look like in the future. It could be very useful to not only our other subcommittees, but to City Council as a whole!

In other news, Youth Week is kicking off with the Youth Excellence Awards presentation on Saturday May 1^st, so be sure to stay tuned for more tales of inspiring young Edmontonians! Get more information online at www.edmontonyouthweek.ca

We made it!

After four long years of construction the next major milestone on Edmonton’s road to urban sustainability is just ahead. While City Councillors and local media had a sneak preview last week, the official grand opening of at the new LRT Stations at Southgate and Century Park is scheduled for Saturday, April 24 2010.

Last stop, Century Park! The South LRT extension is the most recent milestone on the City of Edmonton's path to building a more sustainable community.

Everyone is invited to attend the ceremonies at both locations. The Southgate ceremony starts at 10 am on Saturday; Century Park is at 10:30 am. We are closing the northbound lanes of 111th Street temporarily at both stations to accommodate spectators, transit enthusiasts and citizens of all walks of life. After the ceremonies the Edmonton Transit System (ETS) is hosting a community fair at both locations. The more the merrier – please come down and join the party.

Bus service to both locations is available, despite the road closure. Alternatively, take the LRT to South Campus and jump on a shuttle bus to Southgate or Century Park. LRT service is free from 9 am to 6 pm. LRT to Century Park won’t be available until 11 am, after the ceremonies.

Immense Modes (right), a public art project at Southgate Station. The extension from Health Sciences to Southgate and Century Park covers 7.631-kilometres. This will serve communities of southwest Edmonton and provide new connections to business areas like Southgate Mall..

Parking is also available at both venues. At Southgate, the administration at Southgate Centre Mall has graciously offered mall parking – for one day only! – to all patrons of the Southgate grand opening and community fair (please note: LRT parking will not be available at Southgate after April 24). Motorists can park at Southgate, take in the opening ceremony and check out the community fair inside the LRT station pedway and at the Southgate Mall centre food court.

At Century Park, motorists can park at the new temporary Park & Ride lot that’s opening 1,100 new stalls the same day, April 24. After the opening ceremony the ETS Community Fair continues until 5 pm at a nearby pavilion, with entertainment, tours, displays and a mini farmers’ market.

Free LRT service to both new stations begins at 11 am. Partygoers can jump on the train to shuttle back and forth between the parties at Southgate and Century Park, free of charge.

When the South LRT opens in a few days, passengers will be able to ride in the same seat from Clareview to Century Park through a total 15 stations, covering 20 kilometres in 34 minutes!

In the midst of all the merriment we’d do well to remember that four years is a long time to endure a major construction project, as residents, businesses and commuters of the 111th Street corridor can attest. The City of Edmonton owes its gratitude to all the people who put up with major disruptions for such a long time. Their contribution to the successful completion of the South LRT is invaluable. This is their celebration, and a testament to their patience and goodwill.

Continuum, part of a series of sculptures at Century Park Station. Explore the station and check them all out.

But the South LRT is also the product of a massive amount of work. So the City of Edmonton also thanks the hundreds of consultants and contractors who built the South LRT, and the taxpayers of Canada, Alberta and Edmonton for making their work possible.

Bottom line: the South LRT belongs to Edmontonians. Please use it. In 2007 the complete 7.6 km extension was projected to double LRT weekday ridership in Edmonton from 50,000 daily riders to 100,000. We are on track to meet that goal; help us get there.

Regular LRT service to Century Park begins Sunday, April 25 2010.

The notion of walking 10,000 steps everyday can be daunting for many. The mere thought of such a large number can be enough to stop you in your tracks! Pedestrian beware. It’s that negative self-talk that is the culprit stopping us before we even get started!

Before you get stopped in your tracks again, let’s think this through . . . are you an able bodied individual who uses walking as a regular mode of transportation to get from point A to point B?

If you answered yes, then your body is capable of walking 10,000 steps. Maybe not all at once, but over the course of the day adding up all your steps may surprise you.

Goals are important when starting any new fitness routine. Events like the upcoming Little Big Run can act as a catalyst to help us get active after a long winter.

You may not have realized it, but your body is half way there. Physically you have the capacity to step, so now you just need to shift your brain (the other 50%) into its “Can do” gear, put the dimmer switch on your negative self-talk and away you go!

To help arm you for walking success, here are a few pointers to sustain you for the long haul!

Set a goal and keep your eyes on the prize!
Walking for health is great but, adding a measurable goal or purpose to your activity creates a short term incentive to strive for. For example, register yourself in a 5 km walk/running event this spring like, The Little Big Run (LBR), Sunday, May 30. Ready – set create a plan!

Get to it . . . Plan a strategy, create your plan!
On average people can walk a 9 minute kilometer or a 15 minute mile pace. Based on this info, you can realistically expect to complete a 5 km walk in about 45 minutes. Start slow and increase your walking time over the 6 weeks leading up to the event.

Here’s a sample 6 week progression that will get you to a 5 km walking distance (assuming that you will be committed to doing a training walk four times per week).

Week	Mon.	Weds.	Fri.	Sun.
1	15 min	15 min	20 min	20 min
2	20 min	20 min	25 min	25 min
3	25 min	30 min	30 min	30 min
4	30 min	30 min	35 min	35 min
5	35 min	35 min	40 min	45min
6	40 min	45 min	40 min	LBR

Stay on track!
Be consistent and pick 2 – 3 enjoyable walking routes. Make a date with a friend or family member/s to go for regular walks. This is a great way to keep you motivated and accountable to your program.

Patience!
Don’t expect to get there in a day or a week. Give your body time to adapt and gradually build up your endurance to walking the longer distances.

Walking with friends, family will help you to stay motivated and accountable.

To learn more on how to create a successful walking program, at Active Edmonton’s next free event, Wed. April 14, at City Hall from 12:10 – 12:55 pm. Visit www.edmonton.ca/activedmonton for details. If you joined us for our Annual Winter Walk or Yoga in City Hall, this is the natural next step to help you to continue to live a healthy lifestyle.

As a recent newcomer to the city, I initially viewed Edmonton as another large city where individuals are lost in the large population and my community came from my network of family and friends scattered throughout the city and province.  A large city can be very overwhelming to someone who grew up in a small farming community in northern Alberta.  Up north it is quite common to know all your neighbors, and the sense of community and personal belonging is quite strong when it is on a smaller scale.  I didn’t think it was possible to experience those same feelings in a larger city, until I started volunteering for Next Gen and partnering with the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues.

The city as a whole is large and sprawling, but when you start dividing it into 150 regions or leagues, you suddenly realize that it is very much like a patchwork quilt of smaller communities and local neighborhoods.  You realize that although you may not be able to make a huge difference in the city as a whole, you can certainly make a difference in your local community league and in your own backyard.  Edmonton was the first city in Canada to establish a community based organization, with the first one forming in 1917.  These leagues are the history of Edmonton and the people who formed them did it with passion and dedication to their local communities.  Our generation needs to continue building these communities.

NextGen held its first Community Challenge event back in July 2009 over 50 interested young people meet with 30 seasoned community league executives. The session facilitated by the NextGen Special Projects Committee and the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues.

The Edmonton Community Challenge, a grassroots event currently in the works for June 2010, was an idea that came about from that very concept.  How do we empower and encourage our generation to make a difference in their own backyard and their local community?  Next Gen and the EFCL partnered up in 2009 and a new idea was born – a fun event, open to all ages, that would reward participants for their participation, civic pride, and their desire to do some good for the local community.  Getting to know your neighbors, having fun with your family and friends, contributing to a local charity, and winning a cash prize for your community league for a community project – how many more incentives do we need?

Discussion during the July 2009 event was focused around helping leagues become more welcoming and more engaged with people under 40 - a target demographic identified by leagues last year.

Teams of all ages representing a number of Community Leagues throughout the City of Edmonton will participate in a month long challenge to win a cash prize that will directly benefit their Community League.  The events will take place throughout the month of June 2010, and will include a Neighborhood Cleanup on June 5, 24 Hour Bike Tune Up on June 12, and a Canned Food Sculpture Competition on June 26.  Points will be awarded to teams based on criteria established for each event. The winner will be announced on July 1, at the Canada Day celebrations in Churchill Square.

How can you get involved?  The first step is to encourage your community league to participate and organize a team.  The second step, tell your friends, family, coworkers, local barista or postman and rally the troops!  We will be launching a new website within the next week, so keep checking NextGen’s website for more details.

First of all, apologies for the big gap between posts. Getting all the information from paper into electronic form has taken much longer than anyone expected. Our working group is having a bit of a shake-up. Some of our volunteers are no longer able to offer the amount of time they had previously, so we’re moving slowly (but we’re still moving). We have all the notes you all wrote on the tables entered now, but it’s taking a while to get everything organized. I hope I will have more for you next week.

Secondly, thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the first Engage: Your City Your Voice event through our surveys, over twitter, and in the comments on my last post. Your feedback is important as we build Engage into a series of events.
And because your feedback is so important, I’ll take this post to share with you some of the themes that came out of your feedback and how the working group is planning to move forward.

photo credit: mastermaq

Generally speaking, the majority of the feedback we received was quite positive.  It’s very apparent that you think discussion is important and you want to participate in your city, and you think that Engage: Your City, Your Voice is a good way to do that. That’s exciting for me because it means there’s a large group of people out there who want to contribute to making the city better.

There were, of course, constructive criticisms and the working group is taking them very seriously. There were 4 big things that stood out amongst the feedback. And as with all feedback, there were good and bad comments on each.

1. Venue: Opinion was pretty evenly split on City Hall as a venue for this type of event. Lots of you really love City Hall and thought it was an inspiring place to hold the event, especially given the topics. The other half thought the space was too large and too loud for good discussion.

The working group thought City Hall was a great venue, especially for our first event, but we are planning to try different venues around the city in an effort to try and reach different groups of people.

2. Accessibility: Nearly everyone who provided feedback was glad the venue was easily accessible by public transportation.
The working group will definitely keep this in mind as we book spaces for future events.

3. Audience: Some people felt the audience or participants were not diverse enough. A number of people felt that this was the same general group of fairly privileged people providing opinions on inner city issues and homelessness without including homeless people and people from lower income neighbourhoods.

Part of the reason the working group wants to try different venues is to try to reach different groups of people. We will also try other ways of getting the word out about our events to engage with a more diverse crowd.

4. Facilitation: There were mixed reviews on this as well, but generally the comments agree that we need to have better trained facilitators to make these events meaningful for everyone that attends.

Our facilitators are volunteers and have varying experience with facilitation, but the working group will prepare them better for future events.

Thank you all again for coming out to Engage: Your City, Your Voice – Life in the Urban Core. I hope you’ll continue to attend our future events (including the upcoming Community Challenge, there will be a post about this from Tegan next week) and bring your passion and enthusiasm for Edmonton.