Drive your car less and make use of more sustainable transport options as fewer cars on the road mean less congestion; fuel consumption and emissions.

Walk or cycle

The City of Cape Town plans to increase the numbers of people on foot and on wheels: a city in which people walk and cycle is a safer, vibrant, integrated one with cleaner air.  Cape Town is one of the few cities in South Africa with a ‘bicycle master plan’, and aims to improve on this plan regularly.  Already the City has built new pedestrian and cycling facilities in the inner city, to connect Cape Town Station and Cape Town Stadium, as well as completely separate, high-quality cycling paths alongside the IRT route and along Liesbeeck Parkway. More bicycle and pedestrian paths are being planned throughout the City, designed for commuters and people using bicycles as transport.

What can you do?

If you can’t walk or cycle seven days a week; start small and even if you use motorised transport most of the time, you’re still making an impact:

• Start walking or using your bicycle for transport over the weekends, for shopping and to visit friends if possible;
• Ride your planned commuter route over the weekend first, so you don’t get lost or arrive late on the day;
• Ride or walk from your office to meetings or drive part of the way to work, then ride;
• Plan ahead: leave a selection of personal items at work, or clothing for a day or two;
• Shower before you leave home, ride slowly, and you won’t need to shower again at your destination.  Cool down, then dry yourself with a towel or damp cloth, freshen up, and no-one will know the difference;
• Lobby your office, railway or bus station, shopping centre or building manager for lock-up facilities, bicycle parking and a shower in the building.

And if you can’t do that, you can do the following:

We can’t all work it into our schedules to walk more, or ride a bicycle even some distance, but it’s important to support those who do.

• Slow down, share the road, and be considerate toward people who are using more sustainable modes of transport;
• Support courier companies that use bicycles;
• Take a bicycle taxi in the central city; stop one in the street, or phone and book one 30 minutes in advance;

• Non-motorised resources: For bicycle rentals where you can rent a commuter bicycle in one location and drop it off at another: www.bybike.co.za Bicycling Empowerment Network, an NGO that co-ordinates the delivery of second-hand European commuter-bicycles, as well as new bicycles, to learners, farm workers and independent dealers: www.benbikes.org.za For information about bicycle taxis: contact CycleCabs (www.cyclecabs.co.za ) and Ecomobile (www.ecomobile.co.za ) For maps of bicycle lanes, safe cycling routes and bicycle lock-up facilities in Cape Town: www.rideyourcity.co.za .

A very simple way to reduce your per-person emissions is to share a lift with someone else who is going to the same place. By sharing a car, you can already cut your pre-person emissions in half.

We have become so used to our own private, independent transport that many of us can’t imagine even one day without a car – which is perhaps why car-pooling, other than school lift clubs, isn’t as popular here as it elsewhere.  But give it a try – even once a month.  Plan in advance, so you have just that one day out of 30 where you don’t need a car during working hours.  Sharing lifts to and from work will reduce the amount of fuel you use, reduce congestion and vehicle emissions. Get together with a friend or colleague who lives nearby and travel to work together.

Reduce your need to travel

Plan ahead: organise your work and chores diary so that you don’t have to have meetings outside the office every day, or visit the shops every day.  Make use of all the available technology that facilitates online meetings and conferencing as well as online shared documents and desktops: get to understand concepts such as cloud computing and webinars. Wisely used, technology is able to dramatically reduce our need to travel.

Use public transport

Moving a person over a given distance by public transport consumes, on average, about half the energy of moving a person the same distance by a private vehicle.  In addition, the emissions per person are much lower on public transport than in a private vehicle.

You can multi-task on public transport:

• You can read a book or newspaper
• You can do some work
• You can relax and be less stressed
• You can use your cell phone

Buy a low-impact vehicle

Wonderful as they are, hybrid or electric vehicles are beyond the reach of most of our wallets right now. If you’re in the market for a new car, choose one that’s small with low fuel consumption, low carbon emissions and preferably one that’s made locally, with a high percentage of recyclable materials. Fuel-efficiency isn’t always the answer – remember that a big car could be fuel-efficient for its size, but still have high overall fuel consumption.  Under new legislation, all new cars sold in South Africa must display their fuel consumption and emissions figures on a placard on the windscreen.

Use 'greener' tourism travel options

Make use of more sustainable tourism travel options such as The Green Cab, which is Cape Town’s first tourism transport solution with eco-credentials. The vehicles used have been converted to run on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) which results in fewer harmful vehicle emissions. For more information visit: www.thegreencab.co.za or call 086 184 3473 to make a booking.