washington dc

Paying Employees To Not Drive In Washington, DC

Donald Shoup pointed out many years ago that if companies pay the costs of parking for their employees, a common fringe benefit (and an expensive one, at that), those employers are essentially giving “an invitation to drive to work alone.” Shoup continues to explain that it is time to level the playing field and has been promoting a …

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Bikesharing Saves DC Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars

In November of 2016, a study explored how much bikesharing impacted congestion. This study — Bicycle infrastructure, and traffic congestion: Evidence from DC’s Capital Bikeshare — found that Capital Bikeshare cut neighborhood traffic congestion by ~4%. Previously, some people had implied that the bicyclists using Capital Bikeshare came for a group of former pedestrians and metro travelers, so didn’t really replace …

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$9,641 = Annual Savings Taking Public Transportation In USA

Also published on CleanTechnica. Riding public transportation is a vital means of saving money, money that can much more happily be spent on other things than on owning, driving, and maintaining a car. Transit riders can forget about auto insurance, car payments, fuel costs, tuneups at the mechanic, expensive broken car parts, etc. The American Public …

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Average Public Transit Savings = $16,185 A Year in NYC

We are all aware of the financial argument for using public transportation — it is way, way cheaper. Weighing out the costs and benefits is tricky, but the American Public Transportation Association’s (APTA) monthly Transit Savings Reports have made it beautifully clear. Ranking the savings for the 20 cities with the highest rates of public transportation use, the …

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4.4 Million Miles Of Annual Driving ($704,000 Of Gas) Cut Thanks To Capitol Bikeshare

Members of the Capital Bikeshare service drive 4.4 million miles (198 miles on average per person) less annually. Yep, that’s the average from 22,200 people. If these members all drove average cars that achieved 25 MPG, they would have saved 176,000 gallons of gasoline. That translates into gasoline savings of $704,000 per year, assuming a cost …

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10 Most Climate-Ready Cities in the U.S.?

Boyd Cohen, Ph.D. recently came up with a methodology to rank large cities in the U.S. based on how much they are preparing for or trying to counter climate change. He then went on to create and publish a top 10 list of the most “climate-ready” cities. While I think the term “climate-ready” is sort of a mistake, since he focuses more on efforts to stop climate change not adapt to it (which is what I would assume “climate-readiness” would be about), I think the overall idea and methodology looks great.