Sustainable Travel as Worship

Now that I have facilitated Sustainable Travel to Worship (STW) in May for three years, it is time to report briefly on the event during that time. Before 2005 STW was an informal interfaith event called Bike to Worship limited to Madison, Wisconsin and scheduled to coincide with Wisconsin's Bike to Work Week. Since the weekend event was rained out in 2003, it was expanded to two weekends the next year but was rained out both weekends that year.

The event changed in several important ways between 2004 and 2005. First, the main initiator of the event left Madison for seminary study, leaving me to approach the Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign (WICEC) for sponsorship. WICEC agreed to that at a Board meeting in January of 2005 and ran an article about the program in its winter newsletter (www.wicec.org/Newsletter/Impact_Spring_2005.pdf). What had started as an interfaith Madison event expanded statewide. Second, since the event was not actually limited to bicycles but included most types of car-limited travel (biking, walking, taking transit, car pooling), the name was changed to Sustainable Travel to Worship. Third, since even two days had been rained out the previous year, the event was expanded to include the whole month of May.

In 2005, roughly 14 congregations participated. Of the 8 that submitted results, the average proportion of trips to worship that were made during the month via a sustainable mode was roughly 14 percent. The top three congregations had proportions of 16.6 percent or higher. The highest was over a third of all trips. Some places kept track of what that meant in terms of greenhouse gas emissions saved.

This first year of the statewide event unveiled some issues that could be dealt with in subsequent years. For one, some people differentiated between children and adults, assigning children only half a unit while assigning adults a whole unit. For two, some people did not know how to treat visitors, whether to include them in their tabulations. For three, people thought that the use of hybrid vehicles should be given some credit even if it still could involve driving a single occupancy vehicle (SOV). For four, people almost universally felt that a whole month was too long. There was often enthusiasm at the outset but virtually universal disinterest by the end of the month. An issue that I could not deal with was the fact that many people had to go long distances to their house of worship making walking impossible, and bicycling arduous when even possible. In this case, carpooling was the only option. However, carpooling was not an option for people who had families that occupied most of a vehicle. Thus, although they were aware of the environmental implications of driving to worship, it was impractical for their congregation to participate.

Sustainable Travel to Worship in May in 2006 tried to accommodate such issues. For instance, the rules stated clearly that children under age 6 counted as half a point whereas those 6 years and over were a full point. Setting a standard prevented different places from using a different format. Second, visitors and regular congregants were to be treated the same, thus avoiding potentially divisive behavior. Third, use of a hybrid car was allocated half a point. No matter what their gas mileage, cars still exact an environmental price in requiring the use of land for parking lots and roads (Car pooling with a hybrid would be ideal.) Fourth, the event only occurred on one day or weekend in May. Which one was up to the organizers. Many places chose the weekends before or after Bike to Work Week but anything was fine. Indeed, one place continued to hold the event all month.

In 2006, roughly 14 congregations participated, 8 of them having also participated the year before and 6 being new. Of the 8 that submitted results, the average proportion of trips to worship on the one recorded day or weekend was about 15 percent or about the same as the year before. However, the top three congregations had proportions of 20 percent or higher.

The situation in 2007 was very similar to that in 2006. There were two changes. One was that children of any age were to be considered a whole unit rather than being only half if under 6. A second was that the event no longer needed sponsorship by the Wisconsin Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign. Roughly 13 congregations participated, 6 of them having participated all three years, and three having participated for two years. Four participated for the first time. Of the 10 that reported results, the average was 23 percent. The top four congregations had similar results of about a third or 33 percent.

The results can be summarized in the following table:

Year	No. of Congre- gations	Ave. % of Trips Sustainable	Leaders
2005	14	13.87%	16.6%+
2006	14	14.95%	17.6%+
2007	13	23.19%	33.3%+

These results are guesstimates because they are based on people's best estimates of how many people attended worship services, and of those how many travelled using a sustainable mode. Furthermore, what I report here is based on what is reported to me, something that can accurately reflect the situation or not. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to be totally accurate in reporting.

Given the amount of effort involved in organizing and publicizing the event, I had hoped that the number of congregations participating would grow each year. I am still optimistic that will happen when people realize how simple it is to participate. The trend however is for the leading congregations to have an ever increasing proportion of trips using a sustainable travel mode. As the main purpose of the event is for people to appreciate that sustainable travel is an important part of worship and potentially their everyday life, this is a pleasure to see.