Joining the green commute

JOE MILLER
Miami Herald
Jun 8, 2009

When Don Brazelton's wife asked whether he enjoyed riding his bike to work, "I looked at her like she was crazy." And not the good crazy.

"There's nothing enjoyable about riding with cars," Brazelton told her not long after he started commuting by bike in 2007. His response was understandable, because his 10 1/2-mile morning commute took him from his home near I-540 in Raleigh, N.C. and through a busy part of town to his job as a marketing director with AT&T.

But six months into it, he discovered something even crazier: The cars no longer bothered him. He did enjoy riding his bike to work.

"The traffic's gotten used to me," Brazelton says, "and I've gotten used to it."

That's just the kind of "Aha!" moment officials with the SmartCommute Challenge hope more Research Triangle residents had over the six-week challenge.

The challenge, which just completed its fourth year as a regional event on May 30, aims for Triangle workers to leave the car in the garage at least one day a week and seek alternative ways to get to work: take the bus, carpool, join a vanpool, walk, ride your bike, or don't go to work at all: let work come to you by telecommuting.

As incentive, folks who take the SmartCommute pledge each year - and keep it - are eligible for prizes including free bikes, free bus passes for a year, a laptop computer, Visa gift cards, a $250 "walker's package" from Great Outdoor Provision Co. and a grand prize of $2,500.

The goal isn't just to get people to try alternative commuting for six weeks; it's to get them to persevere as Brazelton did and leave the car home regularly. Of the 12,000 Triangle drivers who signed up for the 2008 challenge, 77 percent said they would continue after the challenge ended.

Challenge's sponsors - including Triangle Transit, Triangle Air Awareness and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina - want fewer cars on the road for pragmatic reasons: to reduce emissions (an estimated 865 fewer metric tons of carbon dioxide was spewed into the atmosphere during last year's challenge, organizers say), reduce the wear on roads and inject - in the case of walkers and bikers - some exercise into commute.

Talk to commuters, though, and you discover other motivations and rewards.

"It really adds adventure to your day," says Emily Dings, who commutes 3 1/2 miles from her home to her job.

On one commute, for instance, a car pulled up next to her at a stoplight, and the driver flashed her a copy of that morning's newspaper heralding UNC's national basketball championship and giving her a big thumbs up.

"I think he did it because my bike is Carolina blue," Dings said. "I think people see you as someone more open to interaction" when you're on a bike.

Brazelton, a former marathon runner, took up cycling after he was hit by a car while running. Since June 2007, he's been doing the 22.2-mile round trip (his route home is slightly longer) nearly every day.

"The amazing thing was that I lost about 20 pounds - amazing for someone who ran 30-plus miles a week - and dropped my heart rate and blood pressure substantially," Brazelton says.

His enjoyment in bike commuting was heightened last fall when gas prices spiked to $4 a gallon. "I figure I was saving almost $100 a month in gas," he said.

Brazelton has become adamant about biking to work, with a few exceptions.

"There are three things," he says, "that will keep me from riding to work: heavy fog, thunderstorms and icy roads."

Two weeks ago he declined his wife's offer to pick him up from work during a downpour, and he has ridden in 15-degree weather.

Still, Dings says folks who read about the likes of Brazelton shouldn't be intimidated.

"A lot of people think you have to be hardcore to do this," she says. "You don't. I'm not that person."

She notes that she commutes as many as three times a week in nice weather, hardly at all when it's cold.

"The best advice I have," she said, "is that you don't have to think in the extreme."