Triangle Air Awareness

“Be Air Aware” Celebration!

TAA Coordinator — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:40:56 +0000

GSK “Be Air Aware” Day

Saturday, April 17 | 9:00am

Clean air mascots Clair, the Clean Air Explorer, and CAM, the Clean Air Maniac, will walk the green carpet at Marbles in celebration of Earth Day. Be among the first to meet Triangle Air Awareness mascots, groove to the tunes of Sandbox Kids & Family Fun Band, and learn more about the importance of clean air with special activities throughout the museum.

Sponsored by GSK and in partnership with Marbles Kids Museum and Triangle Air Awareness, a program of Triangle Tomorrow.

Curb Your Congestion! Improve Air Quality!

TAA Coordinator — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:00:51 +0000

Curb Your Congestion:

The 2010 SmartCommute Challenge and Air Quality Forecast Season Celebration

Thursday, April 15^th9 am

The Research Triangle Park Headquarters
12 Davis Drive
RTP, NC 27709

Click here to RSVP

Featuring Special Guests:

Gene Conti, Secretary of Transportation. NC DOT

Sheila Holman, Deputy Director of Division of Air Quality, NC DENR

Plus:

Triangle Segway Obstacle Course – test your skills!

Melon Bicycles with folding bike test drives

Alternate Fuel Vehicles displays

Triangle Transit bus display

Bike safety checks

Meet the Triangle’s air quality mascots, Clair and CAM, the Clean Air Maniac

Sponsor and Partner Organization display tables with information and give-aways

and

Sign-ups for the SmartCommute Challenge!

Start your morning right with great, locally roasted coffee from Larry’s Beans and a continental breakfast.

Free t-shirts to the first 20 people who smartcommute to the event. Visit RTP.org for driving directions (carpool!) or GoTriangle.org to plan your trip on the bus. Or ride your bike to the event!

For more information about Triangle Air Awareness, visit www.triangleairawareness.org.

For more information about the SmartCommute Challenge, visit www.SmartCommuteChallenge.org

CAM
http://smartcommutechallenge.com/events.html

The Adventures of Claire and CAM DVD

TAA Coordinator — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:49:00 +0000

The Adventures of Claire and CAM

DVD

Now Available.

Looking for a great, easy lesson for your classroom to introduce important, environmental messages to your students? Look no further. The Triangle Air Awareness Program has completed an interactive, educational DVD designed for 3rd and 4th Grade classrooms. Contact us today to get your free copy and try it out in your classroom.

Call 919-733-1805 or email us at info@triangleairawareness.org to learn more. Stay tuned for free video Streaming of the video as well.

NC Air Quality

TAA Coordinator — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 15:40:52 +0000

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Smog limit challenges state

News & Observer Jan 8th 2010

Your future could include a little extra in your paycheck for commuting to work by bus or for carpooling with your neighbors. You might have to get used to limits on mowing your lawn on sweltering summer afternoons.

You’ll breathe easier for your trouble.

Public officials across the state will soon be devising ways to cajole residents and require businesses to cut smog. The reason: Much of North Carolina would flunk the federal pollution standards in a nationwide proposal Thursday to require tougher limits on smog.

Cities and areas that don’t reduce smog could face the loss of federal dollars to build highways - a sanction imposed on Atlanta in the 1990s and one currently facing Charlotte, which has some of the state’s dirtiest air.

The new limits, intended to protect public health, are the strictest ever proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. They will put hundreds of counties across the nation out of compliance and force local officials to find creative new ways to squeeze more pollution reductions from transportation, heavy industry and residents.

In proposing the new limits, the Obama administration acknowledged that the tougher rules could cost electric utilities and oil companies as much as $90 billion in compliance costs. But the federal agency justified the expense by citing the potential savings - between $13 billion and $100 billion per year, depending on just where the limit is set, in avoided medical costs and missed workdays from reductions in asthma, bronchitis and other health complications.

When the EPA’s proposal is settled, as early as next year, North Carolina will have to present federal regulators with a state plan to meet the new standards. The plan, which could raise power costs and force changes to driving habits, will come from the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources.

“We will probably have to look at further controls in power plants and other industry,” said Tom Mather, spokesman for the agency. “We have to demonstrate to the EPA that we’re making a good-faith effort to comply.”

Metro areas in violation

The EPA proposed a range for acceptable smog levels - 60 to 70 parts ozone per 1 billion parts of air - lower than the current limit of 75 parts per billion. The proposal will be subject to public comment and hearings. It could be challenged in court by business groups and others who said Thursday that the EPA’s proposals lack a scientific basis and would impose a financial hardship on businesses and local communities.

Spokesmen from Duke Energy and Progress Energy said they’re reviewing the proposal, but they both cited costly upgrades being made to power plants under the state’s Clean Smokestacks Act. Raleigh-based Progress Energy has spent $2 billion already to install scrubbers and other pollution-trapping equipment.

The main culprits

Ground-level ozone, a chemical compound that irritates the lungs, results from the interaction of nitrogen oxides and other compounds with sunlight and heat. Vehicles of all sorts are the single biggest source of the smog, followed by power plants.

A preliminary analysis in the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources shows that within the proposed range, the limits could put every metropolitan area in the state out of compliance with federal smog limits.

Urban areas fail

Even on the permissive end of the range, 70 parts per billion, all metro areas would fail except Wilmington and a handful of counties in the mountains.

Charlotte is already violating an older, more lenient smog standard, and city planners had until spring to show how they will fix the problem. Thursday’s ruling would put the Triangle, Triad and other areas in the same situation.

Ed Johnson, director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, said this state has met past smog standards because automobiles have been getting more efficient and cleaner.

Transportation options include increasing bus routes, restricting downtown parking, producing cleaner fuels, building more efficient cars, and promoting regional planning strategies that reduce driving distances to work and stores.

“So far we have not had to do anything to curtail people’s ability to drive,” Johnson said. “That may come, but it hasn’t yet.”

john.murawski@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8932

Masthead

Published Fri, Jan 08, 2010 04:54 AM
Modified Fri, Jan 08, 2010 05:01 AM

Cary Christmas Parade w/ CAM, Clean Air Maniac

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:43:43 +0000

WHO?

Come see CAM, the Clean Air Maniac and his sidekick Clair, The Clean Air Explorer, out at the Cary Jaycees Christmas Parade!

WHEN?

2:00 PM, December 12, 2009, Saturday

WHERE?

Downtown Cary, between Martin Architectural Products at 511 East Chatham Street and the old Cary Elementary School at the intersection of South Academy Street and Kildaire Farm Road.

MORE?

http://www.caryjaycees.org/special/christmas_parade.htm

Follow us on Facebook!

TAA Coordinator — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 13:42:16 +0000

Follow all the latest news and headlines about air quality while you poke your friends all day long!

Triangle Air Awareness on Facebook

TAKE THE BUS ; Clean the Air

TAA Coordinator — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:30:17 +0000

Worried if you take an alternative form of transportation into work you would not be able to get home in an emergency?

The Emergency Ride Home (ERH) program provides registered participants (commuters who regularly ride the bus, vanpool, carpool, bike, or walk) with a reliable, emergency ride home on the day the person has used an alternative mode of transportation to get to work.

Source : http://www.gotriangle.org/ERH/index.html

Do I Qualify?

To use an emergency ride home, you must:

Register for the program.
Be a part-time or full-time employee.
Live or work in Durham , Orange or Wake counties.
Ride the bus, carpool, vanpool, bike, or walk to work
(on the day the ride is needed) .

You must be employed by a registered employer to take more than one emergency ride home.

How Do I Register?

Simply visit ShareTheRideNC.org. Here, you can easily find carpool partners, vanpools and more! You may also choose to opt out of carpool matching at any time.

Click Here to Register Today!

What is Considered an Emergency?

You may use this program if:

You or an immediate family member suffers from an illness or severe crisis.
You must work unscheduled overtime (supervisor must sign voucher).
Your carpool or vanpool driver has to stay late or leave early.

Note: Only essential side trips are allowed on the way home (e.g., picking up a sick child at daycare/school).

What Activities are Not Covered?

You may not use this program for:

A ride to work.
Personal errands.
Scheduled overtime.
Business-related travel.
A trip to the emergency room.
Pre-planned medical appointments.
Non-essential trips on the way home.
Missed rides because you were late.

How Do I Get a Ride?

Once registered, you will be able to print a free ERH voucher from ShareTheRideNC.org. You can also view a list of participating taxi cab companies and rental car agencies which accept the voucher.

Note: You may use a voucher for emergencies six times in one calendar year , but no more than twice in any month.

What Else Do I Need to Know?

If your trip is less than 20 miles (one-way), you must call a taxi for your ride home. If your trip is more than 20 miles, you will need to rent a car. Participants must be at least 21 years old to sign a rental agreement.

Vouchers are non-transferable. If you falsify information, use an ERH for a non-emergency trip, or abuse the program in any other way, you will be prohibited from using the program.

You are Here: GoTriangle.org > Emergency Ride Home Program

Charlotte has an ozone problem

TAA Coordinator — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:16:55 +0000

Charlotte has an ozone problem

And if it’s not fixed by a 2010 deadline, federal road money could evaporate.

Charlotte’s Air Quality

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/local/story/779408.html

To Learn more about the air quality in the triangle region, click to www.triangleairawareness.org

By Steve Harrison and Bruce Henderson
sharrison@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Sunday, Jun. 14, 2009

Charlotte’s surging population – and the cars that we drive – have put the region in jeopardy of not meeting federal clear-air standards.

Since early May, Charlotte hasn’t been in “conformity” with federal air-quality goals that try to limit the amount of ozone in the air. If Charlotte can’t show by next spring that its road-building plans won’t make the air worse, the federal government might cut off highway funding for the region.

“This will potentially impact a number of projects throughout the region,” said N.C. Transportation Secretary Gene Conti. “It’s a very difficult environment.”

Cars, trucks and off-road vehicles such as bulldozers produce 80 percent or more of ozone-forming compounds, called nitrogen oxides, in Mecklenburg County.

Ozone, an irritating gas that forms in summer heat and sunlight, can make children with asthma gasp for breath. It also can be dangerous to the elderly and people with heart and lung disease.

Despite years of trying to reduce vehicle emissions, Mecklenburg likely will come up short in meeting a federal ozone standard by the 2010 deadline, said county air-quality director Don Willard.

Recognizing those long odds, state officials withdrew a cleanup plan filed with the Environmental Protection Agency and will refile after this summer’s ozone season. They hope that if ozone levels stay low for the next few months, federal regulators will grant a one-year extension to the compliance deadline.

The county can’t show conformity with federal air standards if it doesn’t have an EPA-approved cleanup plan.

But even if EPA grants an extension, a larger problem looms: an even tougher ozone standard enacted last year. The standard will drop to 75 parts per billion, down from 84. For the last two summers, Charlotte has been at 93.

The county will have to meet that standard as early as 2016.

“For me, the issue is how you reach the (new standard),” Willard said. “The bottom line is not conformity, but how a newer standard can be attained.”

Long work commutes

Cars are cleaner than they were a generation ago because of federal engine standards and improved designs. But Charlotte struggles with ozone because of growth that adds thousands more cars to its roads each year.

While public transit use has increased significantly in recent years, people moving to the city’s suburbs face long commutes to work. In many new subdivisions, it’s hard to reach any other destination without getting into a car.

The sum of all that driving – called vehicle miles traveled or VMT – has historically grown even faster than the city’s population rate. As mileage accelerates, so does pollution.

“The problem is that VMT keeps going up, even if emissions per car goes down,” said Donnie Redmond, planning chief for the state’s Division of Air Quality. “It really is a struggle.”

Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline, followed by a hard recession, means we drive less now. But experts aren’t sure whether the trend will continue.

Calculating air quality

With its long history of air pollution, Charlotte once before faced road-building delays. In the late 1990s, the city couldn’t prove its road plans wouldn’t make ozone and carbon monoxide worse.

Some road work temporarily stalled, but the city eventually satisfied federal regulators.

State and city engineers navigate a complex maze of air-quality calculations to keep the city in good graces with those federal officials.

They start with a state-produced emissions “budget” for the Charlotte region that estimates pollution from vehicles, factories and sources as small as lawnmowers.

Problems pop up when emission estimates, plugged into computers, predict that too much pollution will result.

That happened when the Charlotte Department of Transportation told the state that the city’s vehicle tailpipes would spit out 32 tons a day of nitrogen oxides. When the state used that estimate, it forecast ozone levels higher than the federal limit.

CDOT later revised its estimate to 34 tons. That put the city even further out of compliance.

Charlotte transportation officials now hope that when they again submit new emission estimates, a younger – and cleaner – fleet of cars will offset the growing vehicle numbers.

The problem, however, is recession-weary consumers aren’t buying new cars like they did in the past.

‘Déjà vu with Atlanta’

For a vision of Charlotte’s possible future, look to Atlanta, which has grappled with the Clean Air Act for decades.

In the 1990s, a coalition of environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Georgia Department of Transportation, claiming the area’s ambitious road-building plans would further erode air quality. Their litigation stopped several highways from being built, and led to cancellation of a 70-mile expressway.

Charlotte’s air trouble “is déjà vu with Atlanta,” said David Farren of the Southern Environmental Law Center, which challenged the Atlanta highway plans.

Farren believes that planning groups, in Charlotte, Atlanta and other cities, use too-optimistic projections to meet their pollution budgets.

“There are so many different assumptions that you can use to change the formula and thereby change the result,” Farren said. “But the real teller is: What do those ozone monitors show?”

http://triangleair.blogspot.com/

FREE SIGNS! Idle Reduction Program

TAA Coordinator — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:05:02 +0000

An idling vehicle is one whose engine is running when it is parked or not in motion. Remember, when your car is idling, it is still polluting our air.

Our voluntary program is aimed at distributing signs and materials to partners interested in keeping unnecessary idling under control in their parking lot and pick-up areas. Contact us at air.awareness@ncdenr.gov to learn more or build an anti-idling campaign at your school.

Excessive and unnecessary vehicle idling is a serious, avoidable contributor to air pollution and poor human health. Excessive idling is widespread in all types of vehicles, including cars, buses and trucks. This behavior occurs throughout virtually all transportation activities, including parents picking up children after school, customers waiting in line at a drive-through ATM or restaurant, trucks delivering goods and buses waiting to pick up passengers.

Although some believe that power plants and other smokestack industries are the only major sources of air pollution in North Carolina, in fact, motor vehicles are one of the main contributors to poor air quality. Cars, trucks and other motor vehicles contribute substantially to air quality problems - including ozone, haze, particle pollution, and other pollutants collectively referred to as smog. Highway vehicle emissions account for about one-third of the ozone-forming emissions statewide and up to 70 percent in larger urban counties. Ozone, the state’s most widespread air quality problem, is unhealthy to breathe and damages trees and crops. North Carolina typically ranks among the top 10 states in bad ozone days.

Unnecessary idling contributes to air pollution and has been linked to negative health effects. Please do you part � “Turn of your engine!”

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View Idle Reduction Signs in a larger map

Dump the Pump 2009!

TAA Coordinator — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:40:48 +0000

http://www.triangletransit.org/news/dump-the-pump

In these tough economic times everyone is looking to save wherever they can. The American Public Transportation Association (APTA), Triangle Transit and transit systems across the country will celebrate the fourth annual National Dump the Pump day on Thursday, June 18, 2009. The day is designed to encourage people to get out of their cars and ride public transportation to raise awareness of the financial benefits of transit. Public transportation has the ability to save people money, conserve gasoline, and reduce the harmful greenhouse gases emitted into our environment. CLICK HERE TO CALCULATE YOUR OWN SAVINGS! PLAN YOUR TRIP ONLINE OR CALL 919.485.RIDE A FIRST-TIMER’S GUIDE TO RIDING THE BUS

The Facts

Energy (.pdf)
- Economy (.pdf)
  - Environment (.pdf)
    - Quality of Life (.pdf)