DartmouthCommuting

Vermont Transportation Forum next week

One of the issues raised at the Dartmouth Commuting Forum concerned public input in state transportation planning. 

Towards that end, the Vermont Department of Transportation will be holding a series of public meeting this month on their "Short-Range Transportation Plan."  This meeting will outline what services are currently being offered and, most importantly, provide an opportunity for anyone to offer ideas for improving service.

For Dartmouth employees living in Vermont, there are two meetings they should consider attending: the first occurs on Wednesday, July 16th at 7pm in Royalton, VT at the Royalton Academy Building.  The focus of that meeting will be services currently provided by Stagecoach Transportation.

The second relevant meeting will be held on Tuesday, July 22nd at 5pm in Weathersfield, VT in Memorial Hall.  That meeting will focus on transportation services provided by Connecticut River Transit.

Finally, keep in mind that Vermont DOT has also scheduled a tentative meeting on Monday, July 21st about Advanced Transit.  The location and time of that meeting has not been announced, but check their website here to get the latest information. 

A New Standard?: The 4-Day Work Week

Hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July weekend. 

While enjoying the time off, I notice that a lot of organizations are moving to a four-day work week.

For instance, the town clerk's office of Middlebury, VT has embarked on a two-month pilot program beginning this week for the summer. 

In the Granite State, the public works department for the city of Concord will begin a four-day pilot program this month.  The town of Chesterfield, NH has already switched to a four-day work week, as has the highway department for the town of Madison, NH.

Further west, across the Mississippi, some 80% of the state workers in Utah have made the switch to a four-day work week.  While employees at the state's public universities are not included, it will be interesting to see if the change includes them over time. 

According to one report, Oklahoma State University is considering a four-day work week for all of its employees this summer.

And, as we know here at Dartmouth, non-exempt staff in the Admissions Office have begun a four-day work week pilot program for the summer, too. 

Should more people be doing this at Dartmouth and in the Upper Valley?  One of the attendees from the commuting breakfast suggested that a four-day work week also might require expanding the schedule for the AT and other transportation providers. 

Let me know if you hear about other innovative workplace programs underway to consider, as well as the benefits & drawbacks to the four-day work week at Dartmouth.
 

Commuting Video!

Here, finally, is the video created for the Dartmouth Commuting Breakfast on June 28th.

It's not a production worthy of comparison to Hitchcock, Spielberg, or Lynch, but it was fun to make.  More importantly, it's meant to get everyone in the Dartmouth community thinking about how each of us can do a better job with commuting.

There have been a number of internal meetings since June 28th about how to move forward with some very practical ideas.  I hope that next week, or shortly thereafter, we can begin to announce some concrete initiatives that will build on the enthusiasm found at the June 28th breakfast.

In the meantime, as we enjoy the July 4th holiday, please enjoy this video.

Big Green Bus, Big Green Transportation Bill

Most everyone at Dartmouth is familiar with the Big Green Bus, a student initiative begun four years to encourage conversation and change around energy and the environment through a cross-country summer trip on a (green) school bus converted to run on vegetable oil.

The Boston Globe today had a long story on this year's crew, including videos of the crew trying to get "fuel" from a local McDonalds.  It's a great story and worth the read, even if you think you know the story.

The BIg Green Bus is cool, but sometimes systemic change is what you need.

Over the weekend, I got a chance to run into Congressman Paul Hodes (D-NH), who happens to be a Dartmouth '72 as well.  He mentioned that he had just gotten very cool language added to a $1.7B transportation bill that will fund, among items, the establishment or expansion of "commuter matching services."  The bill (HR 5062) passed the House last week and is now in the Senate.  If the bill passes in its present form and is signed by the President, New Hampshire would be eligible to receive $3.3M in new money for this and the other purposes outlined in the bill.

You can get more details on the bill here.

Here in the rural Upper Valley, that kind of money would go a long way to helping people find fellow commuters.   Another cool thing in the bill that appeals to the Upper Valley is its charge to fund five vanpool programs, two of which must be in non-urban areas. 

Why not have one of the pilot vanpool programs in the Upper Valley?

It's Friday....

...so that means a bit of frivolity is in order.

First, from the Boston Globe, a video showing the so-called Great Prius Mileage-athon. 

"Five Globe staffers race their hybrids from a Whole Foods in Cambridge to the Hummer dealership in Norwood. Highest MPG wins."

Gotta see the look on the faces of the Hummer employees when five Priuses drive into their lot.  You can see the video here.

Second, from Slate magazine, a funny video on the world's worst bike lanes.  One of the biggest items we heard about in the bike & walking breakout group on Wednesday was the poor quality and unevenness of bike lanes in the Upper Valley.  Apparently we are not alone in this plight, if you watch the video here.

Handouts from the Meeting

A lot of thanks for yesterday's meeting should go to Bill Barr in FO&M and Joanna Whitcomb in the Office of Planning, Design, and Construction.

As many people know, Bill runs the Parking operation for Dartmouth and knows its history, the ins-and-outs of various programs, and what has been tried in the past.  (I had no idea, for instance, that van pools used to exist at Dartmouth but faded as the price of gas remained stable in the 1980s.)  Maybe that will change now.

Joanna is a planner at Dartmouth, and helps the College think comprehensively about its projects and footprint in the Upper Valley. 

Together they worked on the Powerpoint slides as well as the 1-page handout on the College's "Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Programs" which were presented at yesterday's meeting.

You can now get the Powerpoint presentation here (8.6Mb) file here: Download 2008624_commuting_breakfast.pdf

The 1-page TDM handout (72Kb) can be found here: Download tdm_programs.pdf

Quick report from the Dartmouth Commuting Breakfast Meeting

As these photos indicate, there was a full house at the Dartmouth Commuting Breakfast meeting this morning.  More than 150 people attended (we ran out of chairs and tables!), and a lot of discussion was held on the topics indicated above. 

Judging only by the number of people at each topic table, my impression was that van pools, regional transportation, local transportation, flexible work options, biking & walking, and innovative commuting were the most popular subjects.

A report about what people learned at the meeting will be shared once we digest the notes and suggestions. 

A copy of the video from the meeting will also be posted.

In the meantime, it would be great to hear from people on a couple of different topics.

*What were you surprised to learn at the commuting meeting?

*If you had to pick one idea that might help the most employees at Dartmouth, what would that one idea be?

Dartmouth Commuting Meeting, June 25, 2008

Everything is in place for the first Dartmouth Commuting meeting tomorrow morning at 7:30am in Alumni Hall. 

More than 150 people have registered to attend (the event is now officially "sold-out"), and we have a great line-up of organizations in the Upper Valley who are focused on commuting and transportation, including

• Upper Valley Transportation Management Association
• Omer & Bob's
• Zip Car
• Advanced Transit
• Hanover Co-op
• Upper Valley Lake Sunapee Regional Planning Commission
• Upper Valley RideShare
• Ottauquechee Two Rivers
• RSG
• Stagecoach Transportation
• Connecticut River Transport

Provost Barry Scherr will kick-off the event, and Bill Barr from Dartmouth's Parking Office will describe all of the commuting alternatives to single-occupancy vehicles available to Dartmouth employees.  We will see a quick video (look for it on this blog soon), hear the commuting stories of four Dartmouth employees, and then begin break-out discussions on ten different topics.

Those topics include

• Slugging   
• Van Pools   
• Biking & Walking   
• Car Pools   
• Local Transportation (Advanced Transit)
• Family & Kids   
• Car-Sharing (Zip Car)   
• Flexible Work Options   
• Regional Transportation (Stagecoach & CT River Transportation)   
• Innovative Commuting (Scooters, Segways, etc)

Check back with this blog to get reports from the meeting, and to continue the conversation about how to make it easier for Dartmouth employees to beat the high-cost of commuting with a single-occupancy vehicle.