The Environmental Protection Agency last week awarded the City of Eugene $104,126 to fund SmartTrips, a greenhouse gas reduction program. Next year, the money will help encourage walking and biking to reduce instances of individuals driving alone.
The money is a small portion of a nationwide grant worth $7.8 million and offered by Climate Showcase Communities Grants, an EPA division, to environmentally aware communities nationwide. Eugene was one of 20 cities and counties that received a grant.
Carolyn Gangmark, EPA pollution prevention coordinator in Region 10, said applicants
competed for grants by submitting plans to explain why they would best implement the money.
“Eugene should be very proud,” she said. “There were over 450 applicants this year; we’ve received more applications than ever.”
Gangmark said the criteria for grant recipients included innovation, replicability and connectivity, with an essential question: “Will we be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions?”
SmartTrips will fund an outreach program using informational packets and weekly events designed to encourage alternative travel models and new travel habits. Information will be delivered — by bicycle — to 12,000 residents in the Trainsong, Whiteaker and Jefferson neighborhoods.
The neighborhoods will host free leadership training programs to educate community members about the impact of transportation choices on climate change, individual actions to reduce his or her carbon footprint, and “peer-to-peer outreach strategies.”
The grant also will fund a campaign to inform Eugene residents about bike routes: where they are; where they lead; and directions and travel distances to important destinations such as parks, libraries, college campuses and downtown, as well as to improve signage along bike paths.
The Eugene SmartTrips program is modeled after the Portland SmartTrips program. The EPA estimates that the Portland program, in the six years since its creation, has repeatedly demonstrated a 9 to 13 percent reduction of drive-alone trips in the targeted areas and an increase in walking, biking and public transit use.