Choose active travel in March

Posted on 22 February, 2016

Greening your grid and getting a grip on your girth.

It’s easier said than done for most of us, even though we all need to do our bit for the environment, and for our fitness and health.

Don’t know about you, but I find—despite my never-ending best intentions—that the days go by and the weeks go by before I realise I’ve blown a lot of hot air but achieved nothing in return. Zip in fact.

Sometimes I need a focus to get me moving, and that’s where the new challenge being introduced by Actsmart called ‘Change your mode for March’ comes in.

What is it?

‘Change your mode for March’ is about parking vehicles and choosing active travel from 1 March to 31 March (registration is a must by 5pm, 29 February).

Active travel you ask? Yup, active travel. Like walking, cycling and taking a bus.

No groaning please.

We need to do something about transport emissions in our capital city. While we’re spoiled and have squeaky clean air and traffic that actually moves during ‘rush hour’, this will all change if we don’t act soon.

Whether we like it or not, transport is one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in Canberra. That’s a fact. So put up your hand if you want to live in a city with filthy air and major congestion on our roads…anyone? Didn’t think so.

How does it work?

‘Change your mode for March’ challenges you to park the car and walk, cycle or take the bus instead. The challenge is free, easy and fun.

Here’s how it works.

1. You register on the Actsmart website—registration is open now and the deadline is 5pm, 29 February (no exceptions allowed). You can compete as an individual or get together a team of friends or colleagues.
2. Set yourself a challenge, remembering that no distance is too small or too big—every step and every kilometre helps.
3. Record, each week during the month of March, the number of kilometres you walked, cycled or bused instead of driving on the website. The website calculates how many emission you’ve saved with active travel.
4. You earn points for your efforts and climb the leader board for active travel.

The website points you to free resources to help you plan, like Park and Ride, Bike and Ride, NXTBus, a walking and cycling map. You can also download a free and easy-to-use phone app to track your distance. Simple.

Why bother?

There’s heaps of reasons to change your mode and choose active travel during March:

• Exercise is good for your health and your sense of wellbeing (duh)
• Easing congestion on our roads makes it easier to move about the city (Canberra isn’t jammed with traffic jams like some other cities but we don’t want this to happen now do we?)
• Leaving the car at home reduces transport emissions (yup)
• Walking, cycling or catching the bus saves you money on petrol, parking and wear and tear on vehicles (how true).

So c’mon Canberra. Take the challenge and use active travel. See how far we can all get in 31 days using alternative modes of transport. You (or your team) might even win a prize for your efforts.

Image of ‘cropped view…‘ via Shutterstock