Best Practices: Transportation

LabRATS Best Practices

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Transportation

Check out some alternatives to driving to work to help decrease your carbon footprint!

Carpool, ride your bike, or take the bus: If possible, start your day a little earlier and ride your bike to work, saving yourself both a trip to the gym and money that would ordinarily be spent on gas! If your work is further away, consider carpooling or taking the bus as an alternative to driving. Visit the UCSB Transportation Alternatives webpage to learn more about the UCSB Vanpool program, discounted MTD bus passes, and more.

Take the express bus (24X) downtown if needed on a workday: Need to travel between downtown and UCSB and don't have time to worry about parking? The 24X runs between downtown and UCSB every half hour during the day, and takes less than 20 minutes to get from the bus loop to the transit center. Best of all, it's free to UCSB students and only $1.25 for staff! For more information on all bus routes, check out https://sbmtd.gov/.

Only ship overnight or "rush" when absolutely necessary: Overnight or "rush" delivery almost always means sending the package by air. Unfortunately, planes contribute more greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) per package than trucks do, and the gases are released directly into the upper atmosphere where they are more dangerous. While choosing shipping options of 2 or 3 days can still mean your package is on a plane, it gives the shipping company more of an opportunity to ship in bulk which saves on resource and transportation costs. The best thing you can do is ship your package by ground, which uses about 1/5th the amount of gas that shipping by air does!

Buy carbon offsets with "additionality": If you have travel obligations in your personal life or your work, offset the amount of carbon you are contributing to the atmosphere by funding programs that sequester carbon our of the atmosphere. Remember to only fund programs that would have been done without your support which meet the criteria of "additionality". For more information, check out the Clean-Air Cool-Planet's Consumers Guide to carbon offsellers.

Use teleconferencing or video conference instead of flying to a meeting: Save yourself the travel and invest in a microphone, web camera, and free videoconferencing software (e.g. ConferenceXP, Zoom, Skype). Alternatively, make an appointment to utilize the videoconference rooms over at Kerr Hall. By avoiding cross-country jet flight, you prevent about one ton of CO2 emissions!