Back to School Carpool

By Susan Bacon

Clean Air Campaign

Back to school and back to the carpool line. Every year parents wait anxiously in the car to greet their students after the first day back. It’s very tempting to wait with the air conditioning running, especially since we’ve all heard the myth that idling uses less fuel than restarting your car. Actually, idling for 30 seconds wastes more gas than restarting your engine.

And every minute spent idling releases 6.6 pounds of pollution into the air around your child’s school. Pollution from vehicle emissions is especially harmful to children, who are lower to the ground near vehicle tailpipes and breathe on average 50 percent more per pound of body weight than adults. This means their young lungs could be breathing in twice as much pollution.

Not a healthy thought.

Through the Clean Air Schools program, The Clean Air Campaign offers solutions to unhealthy air on school grounds. No idling campaigns, walking school buses and bus ridership empower students to do their part to make the air cleaner and healthier.

Do the programs really work? During the 2007- 2008 school year, 10 Gwinnett County Public Schools participated in a no-idle pilot program and reduced idling on schools grounds by 69 percent, more than double their goal. And thanks to a grant from The UPS Foundation, The Clean Air Campaign will be able to take no idling campaigns to almost 125 schools this coming school year.

Through our longstanding partnership with Mothers & Others for Clean Air, The Clean Air Campaign is supporting greater awareness among school administrators of the health risks that children face when they participate in outdoor physical activities on Smog Alert days.

For more information and to read more posts about what the Clean Air Campaign is doing t to improve Atlanta's air quality, visit their blog at www.cleanaircampaign.com/Blog.

Conference Will Address Transportation

Hundreds of experts in transportation demand management will gather in Atlanta for their annual international conference later this month, providing a unique opportunity for local business leaders and HR managers to learn strategies to help them and their employees cope with record gasoline prices.

The Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) International Conference will be held at the InterContinental Hotel in Buckhead Aug. 24-27. Employers interested in launching or expanding carpool, vanpool, transit assistance, telework, flex work programs or other transportation demand management strategies are invited to attend. Registration is available onsite for the entire conference as well as for single-day attendance, although advance online registration is encouraged. 

“Considering the current price of gasoline and the increasing emphasis on the part of business to go green, there has never been a more important time for transportation demand management,” said Mark Wright, ACT’s executive director. “Atlanta’s forward-thinking businesses should leverage this gathering of talent to help address transportation challenges.”

Employers will find a number of sessions directly relevant to their own needs, including topics like worksite parking, employee outreach, integration with HR, telework, climate action plans, and successful employer mobility programs in practice. Speakers and moderators are mobility management professionals drawn both from the Atlanta region and from across the globe.

In addition to traditional panel sessions and keynoters, the program includes a boldly creative “un-conference” approach bringing attendees and topic experts together in high-energy roundtable discussions. Plus, best practices will be showcased in an awards ceremony honoring outstanding programs and professionals.

Employers interested in starting or expanding a vanpool program will find the full-day Vanpool Summit on Aug. 24th of particular interest. More than a dozen exhibitors, including vanpool management firms, will also be on hand to demonstrate a wide range of service options throughout the conference.

For more information about the conference, or to register online, visit www.actweb.org or call (202) 712-9050.

Hitch a Ride

If the ever-increasing gas prices have got worried or you're looking to live more eco-friendly, consider joining a carpool. RideSmart, a cooperative effort between the Atlanta Regional Commission, Georgia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) helps commuters find carpool, vanpool and even rides to school for the kids.

The confidential service matches commuters who live or work in the Atlanta region with potential carpool partners and/or vanpools with open seats. Individuals can obtain immediate ridematch results by using the online system or by calling the toll-free hotline, 1-877-433-3463. 

For more information, visit www.MyRideSmart.com.