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for Petaluma results from the decrease in this city's employees, who To our supervisors and council members as a group are high diesel users . Cloverdale 's lower percentage of _ f drive alone commuters, and Y . those with short commutes, may re- h.. _ 1 extend my appreciation for your fore- ` � .. flect this city 's survey self-selection process aw sighted action to protect the climate. Cli- �tmate protection is our gift to the future. We compared our results with other commute surveys . One survey t , —Jean Schulz, Santa Rosa resident and � : of Sonoma County commuters shows they average 19 miles philanthropist roundtrip and drive alone 75 percent of the time . Our survey showed an average 16 miles roundtrip and drive alone 92 percent of the I, time . Nationwide average fuel efficiency is 20 miles per gallon; our respondents ' vehicles average 19 miles per gallon . used by the County and Santa Rosa . We designed the online em - U ployee commute survey so that other entities wanting to track comm To check another way, we compared our results with figures from mute - generated emissions could use it . the County of Sonoma 's and Santa Rosa 's GHG inventories . Our re- Employers are challenged to reduce GHG from commutes because sults probably more closely approximate actual emissions because it seems they have little control over how employees get to work. we developed our survey based on lessons from the County of However, there really is much they can do, especially by using in - Sonoma study, and our approach was also more rigorous than those centives . In one study, for example , 31 percent of Bay Area em - GHG # employees tons /employee ployees who received vouchers to offset costs increased their transit Co . of Sonoma 14 , 000 41899 2 . 9 Santa Rosa 21712 11161 2 . 3 use . Ultimately, to reduce GHG from employee commutes we must gradually shift taxpayer subsidies—most of them hidden—from pres- 8 subject cities 11777 926 1 . 9 ent GHG - intensive travel modes to more climate -friendly options . GHG emissions associated with employee commutes o E o YEAR > v c E a o a) c c TOTAL U U = a cn V) Number of employees 00 - 01 42 39 117 317 125 53 121 112 926 01 - 02 40 41 117 308 127 53 123 117 926 Ave . # days commuting per year 221 210 212 206 232 202 210 192 211 per employee - all modes average Percent commute days - driving 74 90 92 99 97 88 97 99 92 alone average Length commute in mi . roundtrip 5 26 15 16 16 13 23 10 16 - drive alone average Ave . vehicle fuel efficiency - MPG, 18 21 17 17 21 18 20 19 19 gasoline average Total gallons of gasoline used for 00 - 01 2408 10263 18436 56167 22449 7229 27099 12923 156974 commute per year - all modes 01 - 02 2293 10789 18436 54572 22808 7229 27547 13500 157174 Total gallons of diesel used for 00 - 01 155 0 476 5306 0 0 184 90 6211 commute per year - all modes 01 - 02 147 0 476 5156 0 0 187 94 6060 TOTAL tons GHG per year 00 -01 28 112 206 669 245 79 298 142 1777 - all modes , all fuels 01 -02 27 118 205 650 245 79 302 148 1774 Full report on Employee Commutes by Dave Erickson , SSU intern, posted online at www. skymetrics . us 11 I .