PORT TOWNSEND — Ninety-one people in East Jefferson County chose a less car-dependent way of getting around and reduced their driving by a total of 1,195 miles for Car Free Day on June 1, it was reported Friday.
Employees and students from more than 13 organizations participated along with others in the community, said Cindy Jayne with Local 20/20 in press release.
“And the organizing committee is interested in seeing it become an annual event,” Jayne said.
The special event was organized by a committee made up of representatives of Port Townsend High School Students for Sustainability, Jefferson Transit, Local 20/20, The Chamber of Jefferson County and Jefferson County Public Health.
The idea came from recently modeling by the Jefferson County/Port Townsend Climate Action Committee, and also builds on a previous Car Free Day done by the Port Townsend High School Students for Sustainability in 2019, Jayne said.
“The modeling identified the need to reduce transportation emissions as a key opportunity to reduce our community-wide greenhouse gas emissions, and noted that the two top ways to achieve that are to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and to electrify transportation,” she said.
Nineteen prizes were donated by local businesses and individuals were raffled off.
Chimacum Elementary School had the highest number of participants of any organization — 22 students, or 12 percent of the student body, and three staff members, according to Jayne.
Chimacum won its friendly competition with Port Townsend High School (PTHS), which had nine students predicating.
The school also had the furthest commute with one student traveling 50 miles round trip to school by bus.
Twelve Jefferson County employees participated, Jayne said.
That meant they won a friendly competition with the City of Port Townsend for total numbers and percentages, but the city stood out because of the year-round efforts of city employee Laura Parsons, who noted in her participation form that she commutes by bicycle every day.
”It is a lovely way to start and end the day,” she said.
Finnriver Farm and Cidery had six people participate, about 20 percent of the employees working that day.
The range of ages among participants was from 3 to 75 years old, Jayne said.
The 3-year-old was Makee Lahti Locklear, who rode a Jefferson Transit bus with his mother to gymnastics.
Another participant was Jefferson County Commissioner Kate Dean, who rode her bike to Haines Park and Ride and catching the Transit bus, taking it to the Jefferson County Library.
The range of miles saved per person was also wide — from 1 to 130 miles, Jayne said.
Martin Vandepas of Whidbey Island achieved the record 130 miles by carpooling to the Whidbey ferry and bringing his bike on the ferry so that he was able to ride it to the Haines Place Park and Ride, where he caught a Jefferson Transit bus to Sequim and then a Clallam Transit bus to Port Angeles.
The experiment convinced some to reduce car use to commute in the future, with 26 percent saying that are likely to do it again and 58 percent saying that they are very likely, Jayne said.
She quoted one participant as saying: “This did it for me, I will carpool as often as possible.”
“The true goal of Car Free Day is that people realize the many benefits of driving less, whether it be getting exercise and fresh air, reducing their commuting costs, or enjoying carpooling or bus conversations, along with reducing pollutants that impact our air as well as our marine environment, and are then motivated to do it more in the future,” Jayne said in the press release.
