Commuter Challenge saves over 14,400 gallons of gas, has 17% more participating groups

Another year, another Commuter Challenge, another dip in fuel usage. Driving Commuter Challenge 2011 was a 17% uptick in the number of organizations taking part as compared to last year. Also of note and maybe because spring 2011 hailed as the wettest on record for Ann Arbor, any given car-less person used multiple ways to get to work this May. “Overall this year, people tended to be more flexible with their commuting habits, taking the bus one day and biking the next,” says Nancy Shore, director of Ann Arbor’s getDowntown program.While the total number of persons ditching the solo car ride to work, at 1,817, was slightly less than last year, more organizations – 192 as compared to 164 last spring – signed on to the challenge. And not surprisingly, outfits with fewer than 100 employees had higher join rates. Exceptions to the rule, Shore notes, were the 115-employee Infor Global Solutions and 582-headcount U-M School of Public Health, with just over 70% and 22% of their people, respectively, getting involved.Commuters made 21,452 trips and logged 331,301 miles’ worth of biking, busing, walking, van pooling, and, yes, paddling the Huron River from Ypsi to Tree Town (a Menlo Innovations innovation). Their eco-forward approach prevented the discharge of 283,559 pounds of CO² into the troposphere – equivalent to the annual greenhouse gas emissions of 25 passenger cars and a savings of 14,419 gallons of gas in the process, according to EPA calculations.  Put globally, that also means not “driving your car around the world 13 times,” Shore says. We’ll fly instead – and buy carbon offsets.Source: Nancy Shore, director of Ann Arbor’s getDowntown programWriter: Tanya Muzumdar