Commuter Stories
Greg Hough
Every day, Greg Hough gets to and from work by riding his bike and taking the bus. In recognition of his efforts, Hough has won the quarterly $1,000 prize from the Whatcom County Smart Trips program.
Hough, a quality assurance coordinator in Facilities Management at Western, started riding as an alternative way to get exercise for his other hobby, cross-country skiing. After work, he likes to break up the route and will ride between 4 and 8 miles to his home in the Columbia neighborhood.
He has been making the trip twice each day for the past two years, and in that time he has biked approximately 2,000 miles. Hough has eliminated 2,572 driving miles from his commute, which roughly calculates to 2,090 pounds of carbon dioxide, more than seven pounds of hydrocarbons and 70 pounds of carbon monoxide. In addition, he saved more than $300 in unspent fuel.
"I heard about alternative transportation programs, and I wanted to bike for the exercise,” Hough said.
Hough tracks his miles through Smart Trips, the Whatcom County transportation Web site that allows people to track their alternative transportation trips. Each person can track the amount of biking, walking and carpooling he or she does on a personal calendar at http://www.whatcomsmarttrips.org/. Smart Trips uses a calculation from the Environmental Protection Agency to find the average emissions and fuel consumption for passenger cars and applies that to the distance users have traveled to assess the amount of pollution they have prevented.
Smart Trips draws one name from its list of participants to win a $250 monthly prize and a $1,000 quarterly prize; Hough is the latest quarterly prize winner.
"I’ve got four teenagers, and the truth is I’m going to use the money for groceries,” Hough said.
Hough keeps a running tab each day on his computer and submits his trips online about every two weeks. Hough makes a serious effort to create as little pollution as possible and save money; he buys an annual bus pass and says he saves money not only on gas but on parking as well. Hough uses his bike as his main source of transportation as much as he can, but says he does drive one or two times a week.
Besides riding his bike as an advocate for the environment, Hough sees his effort to track his rides as a way to let the city know who in the county are riding their bikes, and how often.
"I do it to reduce greenhouse gasses and because of global-warming issues,” Hough said. "This is a positive step to lower pollution.”
Hough said he’ll continue to ride his bike to work and for other trips around town. He would like to see more people riding, but understands some just want to drive.
"It’s an ongoing campaign in my house,” he said. “Kids would just rather drive.”
Written by Office of University Communications intern Allison Rock and originally published in FAST, the newsletter for WWU faculty and staff members.