The TDM Professional

Tune In To See How Much Fun You Can Have Carpooling

Visited any of the local transportation web sites recently? If so, you may have seen this ad for Carpoolers, ABC's new half-hour comedy debuting on October 2. You might have wondered why are these agencies promoting a network sitcom? The answer is because we hope viewers may try carpooling as a result.

ABC's web site describes the show thusly:

"Four guys who carpool to work every day come to savor their commute as the only safe time to commiserate about jobs, families - and secrets. Even though "what happens in the carpool stays in the carpool," they'll go beyond the boundaries of this fast-moving commuter confessional to get involved in each other's lives and develop friendships."

At the recent Association for Commuter Transportation Conference in Seattle many of us got see a bunch of trailers as well as a sneak preview of the pilot for the show. The image that I remember most is that in all of the scenes showing the vehicle from afar you see our four carpoolers in the HOV lane whizzing by everybody else gridlocked in the regular lanes. I believe that kind of image can be a very powerful reinforcement of one of the major advantages of carpooling - being able to use the HOV lanes. Andy maybe people will see that carpooling can save money and be fun too.

Let's hope some people watch the show and as a result next time they are stuck in traffic resolve to start carpooling. And let's hope they realize that there are many fine services to help them find a carpool such as Commuter Connections ridematching service, GoLoco or NuRide.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.

Visited any of the local transportation web sites recently? If so, you may have seen this ad for Carpoolers, ABC's new half-hour comedy debuting on October 2. You might have wondered why are these agencies promoting a network sitcom? The answer is because we hope viewers may try carpooling as a result.

ABC's web site describes the show thusly:

"Four guys who carpool to work every day come to savor their commute as the only safe time to commiserate about jobs, families - and secrets. Even though "what happens in the carpool stays in the carpool," they'll go beyond the boundaries of this fast-moving commuter confessional to get involved in each other's lives and develop friendships."

At the recent Association for Commuter Transportation Conference in Seattle many of us got see a bunch of trailers as well as a sneak preview of the pilot for the show. The image that I remember most is that in all of the scenes showing the vehicle from afar you see our four carpoolers in the HOV lane whizzing by everybody else gridlocked in the regular lanes. I believe that kind of image can be a very powerful reinforcement of one of the major advantages of carpooling - being able to use the HOV lanes. Andy maybe people will see that carpooling can save money and be fun too.

Let's hope some people watch the show and as a result next time they are stuck in traffic resolve to start carpooling. And let's hope they realize that there are many fine services to help them find a carpool such as Commuter Connections ridematching service, GoLoco or NuRide.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.

People-Oriented Cities are Cycling Friendly Cities

From our good friends at the Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space blog in Washington, D.C. we find this wonderful video entitled Cycling Friendly Cities funded by the government of the Netherlands. They discuss planning for bicycle infrastructure in Amsterdam and Houton in Netherlands, Copenhagen, Denmark and Bogota, Columbia. The portion showing so many people biking in the snow was especially revealing. I loved the quote from a planner in Bogota: "If you can make a city more bicycle friendly you can make it more human." How cool is that? Click here for the YouTube Link if it doesn't start below.

Enjoy!

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.

TDM and Sporting Events

Although this is a local D.C. story, every major city has traffic-generating sports stadia. Some cities seems to handle the conflicts better than others. For example, San Francisco's new baseball park is often cited as a great example of providing and promoting options to driving for it's fans. The following is reprinted from CommuterPageBlog under the title "Dark Cloud Next Year over Nationals Parking Situation?":

One of my favorite columnists, Thomas Boswell, had an interesting article earlier this week (Fans Can't Fill Seats If They Can't Find Spots, August 29, 2007; Washington Post) about the potential for "dark clouds" to hang over the Washington Nationals attendance next year if enough parking isn't found to accommodate the fans at their new ballpark.

Mr. Boswell posits that the Nationals need to pack the house if they are going to be able to spend the money it will take to put a competitive team on the field. And packing the house on a nightly basis could mean problems if there aren't enough parking spaces for the fans. According to Boswell, here's the math: At RFK 53% percent of crowds arrive by car. If the same proportion do the same at the new ballpark and it holds 41,000 fans that's 22,000 people by car. At 2.75 people per car that's 8,000 parking spaces. And he says they are having a hard time just finding 6,000 spaces at the moment.

So what's the City (who owns the new ballpark) and the Nationals to do? Boswell mentions that the Nats plan a public education campaign so more fans will take Metro. Great! We applaud the action and happen to know that the Nats, the City and WMATA are all working hard on plans to get as many people as possible to use options to driving (full disclosure: as well as being a Nationals Season Tickets Holder - I take Metro to the games - I have a good friend who works for the Nationals on these issues). Even with a great campaign, the fact remains a significant portion of people are going to arrive by car, and it seems the frustrating thing is there are a number of government agencies within short walking distance of the new ballpark that have huge parking garages but as of yet don't want to let them be utilized in the evenings after their employees go home or on the weekends.

Shouldn't the feds help the City and the neighborhoods out? One only need look north towards Baltimore where the City's office buildings cooperate by keeping their doors open on game nights and weekends to accommodate Orioles fans. Lets hope that all those involved in Washington get together and solve the problem. And if the City and team need some good ideas they can start by reviewing the pages and pages of ideas provided in the Comments section after Mr. Boswell's article.

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Chris Hamilton is the Commuter Services Chief for Arlington County, manager of CommuterPageBlog and The TDM Professional blog and a biking/Metrorail commuter from Alexandria, Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C.