Energy Efficiency Transportation Solutions

Environmentally Responsible Transportation Solutions

Feeling trapped by higher fuel prices? You are not alone! Solutions exist, but those necessitate you making changes, showing leadership to others.

Individuals and Families

1. A first start is by driving less, using "alternative" sources of travel such as taking public transit, walking or cycling (the majority of our trips are for short distances such as going to the mail box, corner store for bread/milk, work or school), joining a car share cooperative (share the costs, not necessarily the vehicle!), working from home (where feasible), car pooling(trips for you or your kids), having groceries delivered to your home, etc.
2. The second step is to work with other organisations to change the current set-up. The sad fact is that governments and businesses have designed our infrastructure so that we will be largely dependent on the private automobile. Urban sprawl, scattering the services away from residential areas, lack of bicycle pathways, poor public transportation, destruction of railway tracks and transportation corridors, and the heavy tax-payer subsidisation of the roadways (to name some of the factors) have resulted in very poorly designed cities and transportation networks. This is not your fault. Feeling guilty about driving your car won’t help! Write letters to governments (don't mind their trivial replies; each letter is worth 1000 votes and so they count all of them). Write letters to the papers. Join worthy organisations (see below).
3. Talk with others and explore alternatives. "Think outside of the box.” Rather than go to your groceries, for example, why not have them delivered to you? Work with your neighbours to bring a car share co-op car nearby (see links). Rather than die early due to a lack of exercise and natural light, why not cycle, walk, or use public transportation more often? Be a part of the change. Real solutions exist.Just ask.

Businesses

• Updating your fleet to higher efficiency equipment
• Providing a supervised/controlled/reservation carpool
• Adapt/convert vehicles to accept and run on alternative/sustainable renewable energy resources such as duel fuels (hybrid vehicles) bio-diesel fuels, electricity, hydrogen, compressed air, stored solar energy, etc., and running your refrigeration units on electricity when parked at the loading bay.
• Using hybrids for the bulk of travel
• Most importantly to provide “Drive Smart” driver training to all staff. It includes defensive driving habit training but most importantly how to drive “smart” to conserve fuel/energy, brakes, and the overall drive train of the vehicle as well as training staff how to conserve and protect the environment by performing frequent tire checks, circle checks and the avoidance of unnecessary idling.
• Providing bicycle/scooter racks for employees/customers
• Provide recharging stations for company, employee, and customer hybrid and electric vehicles. These could be controlled by the need to use preauthorized company cards or credit/debit or purchased cards.

For All

LOWER MAINLAND

VANCOUVER ISLAND

• An enhanced quality of life that ensures a sustainable, healthy, safe environment and nurtures a diverse and flourishing cultural mosaic.
• A sustainable economy that encourages prosperity for all and enhances human dignity through community and individual enterprise.

Concerns about the safety of riding a bicycle
Click here to read a letter to the editor re cycling issues

If you stopped using one car you would save yourself thousands of dollars each year, feel better, and lower your emissions by a few tons a year. Wouldn’t this be better than feeling guilty and being broke?

Car sharing
Share the expenses of operating a vehicle, but use the car when you need it.

In Vancouver the rapidly growing Cooperative Auto Network can provide you with a vehicle in virtually any area of the lower mainland.  Vehicles are also conveniently located in Nanaimo and elsewhere on Vancouver Island. 

In Victoria check out www.victoriacarshare.ca.

Reciprocal agreements are in place between these and other car co-ops, such as in Nelson!

Car Pooling
British Columbian's are very fortunate to have a very viable way of moving commuters from one city to another. The Jack Bell Foundation has many vans available for those who regularly commute between cities and various communities. And they sponsor a way to hook up with others who are already using their own vehicles.

Car pooling happens less formally when people organise rides to common destinations. Way more fun, way cheaper (even if you pay for someone else's gas), better for the environment, and helps to lower the price of fuel!

Don't want to spend half your day being a virtual taxi-driver for your kids? Help them to organise car pooling to their sport and other activities!

Railroad
Do you believe that the Island railway offers an important part of the solution to transportation? Railways are far more energy efficient, environmentally superior, and a safer method of transporting goods and people. Unfortunately they fall under federal jurisdiction (highways are a provincial responsibility), and so have fallen way behind what other industrialised countries have.

Do you want to support the revitilisation of the Island railway? It is now a public railway, but needs major investment from governments in order to remove traffic from the highway and add efficient commuter services. Consider becoming a member of the Friends of the Island Corridor. Check them out at www.ourcorridor.ca.

The more supporters they have the more likely they will get the assistance required to make Vancouver Island a better place in which to live and to do business.