Curb Your Car Week 2008 Results

The Curb Your Car Week event took place the week of May 18 to 24. During that week, 384 residents from Brighton and Rochester registered their pledge to walk, bike, carpool, or ride the bus for at least a day as an alternative to drive their car.

Survey results

(384 participants; 101 reporting their results.)

  • Total Miles saved: 7,429 miles! That’s over 1/3 of the way around the earth!
  • Gallons Saved: 314 gallons (Based on individual MPG )
  • Pounds of CO2 saved: 5,966 pounds (Based on 19 lbs per gallon)

Miles saved per activity

  • CarpoolingL: 3,225
  • Biking: 1,123
  • Not going somewhere you normally go:1,005
  • Combining Trips: 890
  • Telecommuting: 600
  • Walking: 284
  • Bus: 185
  • Other (includes motorcycling): 118

In their own words

I went away for the weekend to my college reunion and decided to find a ride with others going instead of taking my own car. “Curb your car week” really made me think about this, as I had been planning on driving myself.

It was great to be a part of this program. It really encouraged me to think about alternative ways of getting to work and saving the environment. Thanks for organizing this. Hope you will do it again.

This is a great program that should be run once a year. It would be great to do it more than that, but I worry about people becoming apathetic if it is done more than one week per year. I’ve changed my lifestyle and will take fewer and less frequent trips by car and I ride my bike to work everyday!

Curb your car week was a wonderful idea. It really raised my level of awareness significantly. Even though the challenge is over, I still stop to think about where I need to go and alternative ways to get there. Thank you!

This was my first adventure riding RTS buses to & from French Road School. With a small lifestyle change, and rising one hour earlier, I managed to save $40 in fuel cost! I also had an opportunity to meet several terrific people I might not have otherwise met.

I am waiting for my special order bike to arrive so I can begin commuting on the canal from Chili to Brighton. I love the exercise and the challenge of the journey.

Thank you for the positive push. By signing the pledge I felt accomplished and proud when I completed the week without ever driving. I now plan to take the bus 2-3 times a week and only drive when I have other appointments or meetings after work that may make catching a bus more difficult.

I like the idea of continuing these new habits. My SUV gets terrible mileage while my husband’s Honda Civic Hybrid is our driving car of choice. Please do this again to continue to raise awareness about what we can live without. Our winter’s prevent most bike riding and walking so May was a great time to do this as we are able to get outdoors more.

This was great. I have been threatening to ride my bike to work for years, but never have. This incentive has put me over the hurdle of doing it. Actually I rode in 3 days with a friend the week before “curb your car week” before realizing that I was actually a week ahead of time. I rode 4 days during the prescribed week. Thank you for helping me – I am going to make it a habit!

Please do this again – we had fun and it only would have been better if the weather cooperated! We are looking forward to riding bikes and taking the bus more this summer!!!! Thanks!

I never drive the car between Friday night and Saturday night, in addition I have started carpooling everyday (with some exceptions) to work in Greece…so between the two of us we are saving 30X5=150 miles per week of traveling. The extra advantage is that my co-worker and I have become better friends.

Great idea, – sent out to one of my daughter’s sports team to very luke warm response which was disappointing. My daughter totally jumped on the band wagon and biked to school every day to save us having to pick her up after practice. By the end of the week she had recruited one additional rider which is great.

It was hard not to drive around as usual but the gas prices made it easier to just say NO and consolodate trips or not go at all. I shopped more on line and found it a cost savings all around.

With the price of gas going so high I may need to do more of this. It wasn’t painful and saved me some money too.

So glad that so many people signed up! FINALLY, the word is getting out that It IS Easy Being Green. Thank you to all of you at Color Brighton Green.

I have been deliberately using my car less over the past few years. This past week has been incentive to drive even less.

Was happy to be aware of how I could stop making unnessary trips…saved me money by not going to stores “just to look”.

I also improved my mileage by driving more slowly on the expressways. The last time I bought gas I got about 38mpg. Normally I get 29 around town and 31-33 on a trip. I feel that speed limits on expressways should be changed to 55mph.

I found it really difficult to try to drive less, but combining trips and biking more, is becoming a lifestyle change, at least for the warm months. Thanks!

I enjoyed doing this! There were some days I might well have driven instead of biking, had I not been extra-motivated to be as green as possible. Good training for the future!

Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of Curb Your Car Week. I was more mindful that week of using the car less…and I’ll make sure I continue to keep it on the surface of my mind! Thanks!

I have always tried to walk wherever instead of driving. I combine trips in an orderly manner so that I don’t have to backtrack. I consider myself pretty conscientious in this regard. Living in the 12 corners area makes it quite easy to be mindful. Thank you all for this great effort in making folks more aware and hopefully more concerned about our fragile planet.

This definitely helped to raise my awareness of how often I rely on my car when other options are available.

Not all businesses are alternative transportation friendly. When I biked up to the drive-up teller at HSBC at 12 Corners, I was told I was not allowed to make a transaction on a bike. There was no bike rack in the area. I skipped explaining to the teller that in NY State, a bike has the same right to the road as a car.

This happened to be a week that was very hard to do. But we’ll keep trying. And we got the family to ride bikes to church — once that has happened once, maybe we can make a habit of it.