Bikers on John Nolen for Ride the Drive.
City of Madison

Dane County Residents Log Over 4,000 Sustainable Trips, Making Huge Environmental Impact

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MADISON, WI – Dane County residents who participated in the RoundTrip Spring Roll Challenge logged 4,280 car-free and car-light trips in April, avoiding over 7.1 tons of carbon dioxide emissions for Earth Month. This equates to recycling a garbage truck of waste or charging over a million smartphones.

Participants logged their trips in RoundTrip’s online platform, which makes it easy and fun for people to connect with transportation options and track the impact of their non-drive-alone trips. RoundTrip is a program of the Greater Madison MPO that encourages people living and working in Dane County to use sustainable options such as public transit, biking, carpooling, vanpooling and walking. In April, RoundTrip hosted the Spring Roll Challenge to encourage non-drive-alone trips and raise awareness about the environmental impact of our day-to-day transportation choices.

Earth Month was the perfect time to launch the challenge. Small changes add up, so our goal was to encourage and help people see the benefits of replacing even one or two drive-alone trips each week with a different option—whether carpooling to work, bicycling with their child to school, or riding Metro to meet friends on a Friday night.

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Zia Brucaya, RoundTrip Program Manager

In addition to avoiding tons of tailpipe emissions, the challenge’s 157 participants saved $5,200 in gas and car maintenance expenses, burned 600,000 calories and traveled over 20,000 miles. Participants who logged a certain number of car-free and car-light “green” trips were entered into weekly and grand prize drawings for digital gift cards, BCycle memberships, travel mugs and Metro Transit passes.

Prachi, an engineer in Madison who participated in the Spring Roll Challenge, loved seeing the difference she made.

I’ve been taking the bus and using the public bikes since I moved to Madison a few months ago – it’s always been a convenient way to get around, but logging my trips in RoundTrip showed me just how much better it is for the environment. Everything adds up!

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Prachi, Spring Roll Challenge Participant 

RoundTrip will host its next transportation challenge in September. To learn more and register with RoundTrip, visit: www.RoundTripGreaterMadison.org. 

About RoundTrip: RoundTrip is a program of the Greater Madison MPO that connects individuals and employers in Dane County with alternatives to driving alone. RoundTrip’s work is funded in part through grants from the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration, and by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. Additional support is provided by the City of Madison, Metro Transit, Dane County, and UW-Madison. RoundTrip works with local partners to raise awareness and deliver incentives that support affordable, sustainable options. In 2023, RoundTrip users logged 6,300 non-drive-alone trips, resulting in $11,000 saved and 11.5 tons of CO2 emissions reduced. 

About the Greater Madison Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO): The Greater Madison Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Madison Urban Area. The MPO leads a cooperative, comprehensive regional transportation planning and decision-making process for the greater Madison area and awards millions of dollars of federal funding to local transportation projects. 

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