Via
McClatchy:
WASHINGTON — When long-haul trucker Rusty Wade pulled his rig into a Missouri truck stop last week, he noticed something strange.
Of the 50 or so 18-wheelers parked in the lot, only five had their engines idling.
"That's only because of the high price of fuel," said Wade, an independent owner-operator from Brundidge, Ala. "A year ago there would only be about five that weren't running."
Setting aside, for a moment, the economic drivers behind this, anti-idling campaigns have been a major component of transportation-related air quality programs across the country. In Virginia,
ShenAir has been tackling this issue for some time, primarily from the cost-savings angle of reducing fuel consumption. While I'm sure they've had some success in inducing voluntary measures, it appears that its going to take the pain of unusually high gas prices to drive what is, in the end, a healthy behavior change.
As I mentioned in my last post, we've more than doubled the Clean Commute Day pledges year-over-year. What's more exciting, though, is the diversity of participants. Last year, Roanoke County employees and Blue Ridge Bicycle Club members made up the bulk of pledges; this year, Roanoke County continues to be a heavy hitter and stands as the employer with the highest pledges, but the team formed by the Virginia DEQ is actually outperforming the county in terms of percentage of employees participating.
Roanoke County can't rest on its laurels, however; VDOT is quickly closing in. Yes, VDOT has quite a few bike and walk pledges under their belts. Good for them!
We've had teams formed by the DEQ, the Roanoke Chapter of BikeWalk Virginia, Mattern & Craig, the Roanoke Outdoors and Social Club, and the Blue Ridge Bicycle Club. Employer participants are all over the board - a number of Virginia Tech Corporate Reaserch Center employers (most notably VTLS), Virginia Tech, WSLS Channel 10, Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, Norfolk Southern, The Roanoke Times, and more.
Biking is clearly the preferred option this year, with bike pledges coming it at 43% of the total - and with gas prices being where they are, I'm not surprised that commuters would be using Clean Commute Day as an opportunity to make some room in their budgets.
As of this morning, we're at 79 pledges. Let's see if we can't make it 100 by the end of the week!