The Commuter Challenge: Are You Signing Up???
Challenge your colleagues, parents and friends… and even your competitors
(Montreal, May 30, 2002) - Once again this year, the Association Transport 2000 Québec is organizing its popular Défi Transport ("Commuter Challenge") contest, which has just started to accept registrations.
In an age of growing public awareness of health and well-being, the Commuter Challenge is proving be an ideal occasion for assessing our regular commuting habits, which for all too many of us means the automobile. The Commuter Challenge is also a good opportunity to find out about alternative ways of commuting that promote our health while carrying us to our destinations.
Using public transit, bicycles and roller skates and walking are all ways of getting around we should give serious consideration to. Not only do these modes of transport improve our physical condition, they also help to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which are harmful not only to the environment, but indirectly, to our health as well.
Transport 2000 Québec is therefore encouraging the population to change its commuting practices and use more environmentally friendly means of transportation on the Journée de l'Air Pur ("Clean Air Day"), which this year will take place on Wednesday June 5.
The Auto-Free Commuter Challenge 2000 Contest
The contest is open to everyone, even regular public transit users. There are two ways of entering: as an individual, or as a group, in which case you register your company. You must fill out the entry form, available by calling Transport 2000 Québec at (514) 932-8008, or by visiting its Web site www.transport2000qc.ca and remit it no later than June 5, 2002 to Transport2000 Québec, by mail, in person or via the Internet. The association's Web site also shows a simple way to calculate the amount of greenhouse gases generated by the means of transportation you use every day.
When you fill out the entry form, you must indicate the means of transportation you normally use, the number of kilometres you travel in a day and your preferred alternative mode of transport for June 5.
Prizes worth a total of $7,500 will be handed out to winning participants. A train trip from Montreal to Vancouver (courtesy of VIA Rail) and two class 3 TRAM cards (courtesy of the Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) will be drawn from the group registrations received. Two class 3 TRAM cards will also be drawn from the individual registrations received.
La Journée de l'Air Pur ("Clean Air Day")
Under the theme "The greenhouse effect? I don't really know what you mean..." the Association Transport 2000 Québec is attempting to raise public awareness and round up as many people as possible to celebrate the Journée de l'Air Pur ("Clean Air Cup") this coming Wednesday June 5. The event will take place in Dorchester Square, between Peel and Metcalfe streets, just north of René-Lévesque Boulevard West. Posters on this theme have already started cropping up in bus shelters and métro stations.
Information booths devoted to greenhouse gases and public transit will be open to the public from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Quite a few different activities will also be featured, including the well-known percussionnist Guy Nadon, who will give an original, ultra-sonorous rendition of his very own, personal idea of the word "recycling." A public transit wish tree will be set up in the Square, and clowns and magicians will entertain the crowd.
Halfway through the day, representatives of Transport 2000 Québec will award the Coupe de l'Air Pur ("Clean Air Cup") to the company that has recruited the most participants multiplied by the number of "green" kilometres they logged in the day. Last year, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada walked away with the cup.
Established in Québec in 1996, the Journée de l'Air Pur ("Clean Air Day") coincides with the United Nations' World Environment Day, so this is a rendez-vous not to be missed.
Transport 2000 Québec is challenging all the cities in Quebec!
Normand Parisien, the Executive Director of Transport 2000 Québec, used the occasion of the contest announcement to throw a challenge to all the cities in Quebec: "We intend to prove that public transit can help substantially reduce greenhouse gases emissions. Montreal is one of the cities with the greatest public awareness of this issue, and it should be on the agenda of all the cities in Quebec. I therefore invite each and every of them to fall in step and organize its own Commuter Challenge. Maybe we could even hold inter-city competitions for the next Journée de l'Air Pur."
About Transport 2000 Québec
The Association Transport 2000 Québec is a non-profit non-government organization that does advocacy for public transit users and promotes efficient, sustainable means of transportation. Created in 1977 by a group of public transit users, the association, which this year is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its foundation, made it its mission to contribute to the adoption and implementation of a policy on sustainable transportation for Quebec. To achieve this, it has set four key objectives for itself: to promote accessibility to mass transit for as many people as possible in Quebec; to promote the development of modes of transport with less impact on the environment; to promote a more rational use of energy resources used for carrying passengers; and to help bring together mass transit users.
Please feel free to visit the Transport 2000 Québec Web site www.transport2000qc.ca where you will find all kinds of useful information.
For further information:
Normand Parisien, Executive Director
Transport 2000 Québec
(514) 932-8008
