
Transportation is a means of gaining access to the goods and services. Access can be provided by trains, planes, buses, bicycles, private automobiles, taxi cabs, or just by walking. The most environmentally-friendly forms of transportation are walking and bicycling. Unfortunately, government spends little on these two forms of transportation in comparison with what it spends on roads and parking. Many of our new communities aren't even built with sidewalks today!
One of the easiest and cheapest ways to immediately reduce our
Metro Transit has a variety of tools at metrotransit.org to get you started. One example is the Trip Planner which helps find the transit route that fits your needs. For instance, you can enter in a starting point, an end point destination and time of travel, and the Trip Planner will give you route options, fare information, and links to maps.
Metro Transit unveiled its first hybrid bus in 2002 and recently added 60 more to its fleet as part of the agency's Go Greener initiative. Over the next four years, 112 more hybrids will follow.
These buses deliver about 25 percent better fuel economy and produce 90 percent fewer emissions than the buses they replace. Go Greener buses are exceptionally quiet, too.
An average Twin Cities commuter contributes about 2.6 tons of greenhouse gas emissions by driving alone to work. Multiply that volume of pollution times the number of people driving alone each day and it adds up to a serious impact.
All Metro Transit buses and trains are equipped with bike racks, helping to expand your trip options. Racks on buses accommodate up to two bikes at a time. Each Hiawatha light-rail train car can hold four bikes. There is no additional charge for using bike racks. Those who combine biking and transit know how convenient bike racks make traveling around the Twin Cities. Metro Transit makes it easy to pedal for part of the way to your destination and ride the rest.
More and more Twin Cities businesses – large and small – are helping employees underwrite the cost of commuting by bus and train. Employees within a company frequently become the catalyst for a company-sponsored transit benefit by asking their employers to examine Metro Transit’s premium business partnership called “Metropass”.
Includes Listing of Bicycling Resources