Sustainable Transportation – Philosophy
(Excerpt from a summary report on the fall 2008 staff and board retreat. Written by Jesse Munson, transportation staff.)
1. What are the inequities?
Ironically, the inequity driving social injustice is driving. Driving is very hazardous to our environment, health and safety. The consumption of oil contributes to the profits of oil giants, as many people are forced to conform to an automobile-centered schedule.
The burning of fossil fuels is an immediate threat to our health, especially for people living next to massive interstates and highways (usually lower class individuals). Highways and interstates are frequently constructed without regard for the effect they'll have on lower income neighborhoods.
Also, government investment in public transit services is far below their investment in private vehicle transport which extenuates the injustice and exacerbates discrimination.
On campus, existing public transit services are unavailable to some campus staff, especially those with after hours working times, which creates an injustice. These individuals are forced into using single occupancy transportation which revisits the cost discrimination effect. Access to the university via alternative transportation should be equal access and non-discriminatory. Since the university is part of a broader transit system, it's our job to point out where local government has failed to accommodate all university affiliates.
Lastly, lower income families have to attribute a higher percentage of their income to transportation costs. Wealthy families can absorb the costs of high fuel prices and expensive car repairs.
For these reasons, our marketing and development has focused strictly on walking, busing and biking. It doesn't make sense for us to associate ourselves with single occupancy vehicles after we've outlined all the threats associated with them.
2. Long term vision
Eventually, we'd like to see the CU campus become car-free. We can achieve this goal incrementally by developing program and marketing strategies. By 2012, we'd like to see the continued success of the Bus Pass Program, the Ski Bus Program, the Bike Program and continued partnerships with PTS, RTD and Special Transit.
We'd also like to see a comprehensive Carpool/Vanpool program which will help in two areas. First, a carpool/vanpool program will help to eliminate single occupancy vehicle usage for transporting to campus. Secondly, this program would provide a sustainable transportation option for CU staff to use when their hours of work might not currently allow them to. As described above, all university affiliates should have equal access to alternative transportation options. Therefore, we will research where the unserved populations live, the levels of transit service that exist and the quality of bicycle/pedestrian amenities. Then, we will research sources of funding in order to implement this carpool/vanpool service, thus closing the gap by providing all university affilitats with alternative transportation options to gain access to campus.
By 2020, we hope to be even closer to a completely car-free campus. We envision a campus where every student, faculty and staff member gets to and from campus in a sustainable way everyday. Continued development of our programs will ensure that CU affiliates will be virtually carbon neutral.
3. Set semester and annual goals for your program
a. Our priorities for December are to continue developing campus-wide awareness about all of our successful programs so far. This will involve marketing for the Ski Bus, Late Night Transit, the Mobile Mechanic, the Bike Station, bike advocacy and our partnerships with RTD and Special Transit. Additionally, we'd like to refresh our Community Based Social Marketing template. This will involve evaluating the campaigns derived from our first round of planning to see if they've been successful. These campaigns include the Bus Book publication, the Imagine a World Without Cars art gallery and the Unofficial Guide to Biking in Boulder blog. After evaluating these campaigns, we'll continue to develop the CBSM marketing approach by planning and designing several other campaigns derived from the CBSM process. These derivations will be implemented in the spring.
b. After refreshing our CBSM template, we will have multiple tactics ranging from the introduction of new programs, the development of existing programs and the marketing involved in promoting these programs. For example, a new program is the carpool/vanpool program mentioned before. Some examples of programs we'd like to develop further are the Adopt-a-Bike program and a bicycle swap event. Lastly, our tactics for promoting most of our programs exist in the form of publications, brochures, blog posts, stickers, t-shirts, posters, banners, bus boards and bookmarks.
c. Some partners we'd like to develop relationships with are recycling, promotions and the environmental board. We'd like to see more recycling on board buses and next to parking permit printers. We'd also like to see more of our promotional materials reach students. Lastly, we'd like to work more closely with the board in order to secure funds for all of our program's financial needs.
d. Barriers that are stopping us from our ultimate goal of a car free campus are the fact that US infrastructure caters to car users, people love their cars and people keep using their cars on a daily basis to transport to all their daily events.
