A community is not just a place on a map; in its truest sense, it is a neighbourhood where its inhabitants can be.

Increasingly, citizens in villages, towns, and cities want their spaces to be green, smart, sustainable, or liveable – pick the adjective you like best. In a nutshell, they want their locale to improve their state of being.

As more of the world’s population moves to urban centres, residents are asking themselves, ‘how is my community prepared to take care of me and my neighbours now and far into the future?’

To answer that question involves ranking your community on a number of different criteria, most of which impact its carbon footprint.

A vision of a sustainable city emphasizes mixed-use zoning, pedestrian-, bicycle -, and transit-friendly streets, renewable energy sources, locally grown food, affordable housing, clean air, drinkable water, and green buildings.

But liveability in our communities begins with how we move around in them.

According to James Elsen, the founder and CEO of Sustainlane.com, the biggest barrier to liveability in cities is on four wheels.

“When you add up all the numbers, sustainability comes down to the transportation sector,” says Elsen. “It’s the darn car thing.”

During the week from June 1 to 7, citizens across Canada have a chance to reassess their relationship with the automobile. That’s the week of the Commuter Challenge – a time to rethink how we get to work and how we can reduce our carbon output while making the daily trek to our place of employment or school.
Commuter Challenge is a national program that encourages Canadians to walk, cycle, take transit, inline skate, carpool or telework instead of driving to work alone. The challenge supports workplaces as they encourage their employees to leave their cars at home for their personal health, the health of their communities and the health of the environment.
All you have to do is register your workplace at commuterchallenge.ca. It’s an official part of Environment Week in Canada and celebrates Clean Air Day on June 4.
Businesses, local governments, community organizations, and schools are invited to participate and challenge one another for the right to be the greenest commuting organization in their region.
Taking the car – especially if we drive alone – creates copious amounts of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming.
Burning a single gallon of gasoline produces 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, which contains five pounds of pure carbon. It is, says environmental writer John Ryan, “like tossing a five-pound bag of charcoal briquettes out the window every 20 miles or so.”
In assessing your community’s liveability, one of the first questions to ask is what transit options do you have and how convenient are they. A bus system that doesn’t run late in the evening, on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays, or frequently enough during rush hour is not really that convenient.
“Leadership in affordable and convenient public transport will pay dividends for a city, having positive impacts on childhood asthma rates, traffic congestion and associated stress, fuel consumption, and greenhouse gases,” says Elsen.
The average car produces between 10,000 and 12,000 pounds of climate-changing, globe-warming carbon dioxide every year. For every mile you travel, public transport uses around half the fuel of a private car.
Transit operations require multi-year, even multi-generational, funding investments and that means strong political leadership is required to push for the needed upgrades.
Transportation and land use are inextricably related. To encourage people to use a public transit system, we need to adopt land-use policies that reduce our needs for transportation and let us meet those needs in more energy-efficient ways.
Innovative leadership is needed to achieve improved public transport. Frieburg, Germany made its medieval town centre more pedestrian-friendly, developed a lattice-work of bike paths, and instituted a flat rate for travel on tramways and buses.
The German city has a car-ownership rate of 430 per 1,000 inhabitants, well below the United States average of 640 per 1,000 residents.
So give your car a rest during Commuter Challenge week. Find out about carpooling or ridesharing, ride a bicycle, take a bus, or just walk.
By reducing your commuting kilometres, you’ll help to reduce health care costs for Canadians – it is estimated that transportation-related emissions will cost the health care system $11 to $38 billion between 1997 and 2020.
Did you know that it takes 130 trees to produce the amount of oxygen needed to combat the carbon dioxide emitted from one car each year?
June 1 to 7 is not only a week to take the commuter challenge, but one in which to engage community leaders in discussions on how to improve transportation options in your community.
Remember to talk your walk.