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The University seeks to provide healthy, efficient, economic, and sustainable forms of transportation for students, employees, and campus visitors. We seek to offer choices and encourage students and employees to consider these alternatives to driving a car.
Ride sharing is a form of transportation that uses a motor vehicle with more than one single occupant. Many transportation emissions are due to the high frequency of Single-Occupancy-Vehicle (SOV) trips. By sharing a ride with even one more person, via carpool or vanpool, the emissions from your trips are cut in half (one vehicle going 15 miles, compared with two vehicles going 15 miles each). This system is very cost effective, but it is less convenient to the typical campus commuter than driving a personal SOV. Therefore, campus should encourage ride sharing.
A low-emission vehicle is one that emits relatively low levels of motor vehicle emissions. Examples include electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, and biofuel vehicles. The University encourages the use of low-emission vehicles by students, employees, and visitors.
The University supports efforts of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association to bring highspeed rail to Champaign-Urbana. This infrastructure would create the ability to travel to Chicago in less than one hour. It would greatly decrease transportation emissions, and it would alse increase economic development in this area.
The University works with Amtrak to provide train schedules at various locations throughout campus.
Train travel is an excellent way to go long distances. With the convenient location of the train station in downtown Champaign at the Illinoii Terminal, many people on campus use Amtrak to go to Chicago, St. Louis, or other destinations.
Walking is an active transportation mode that the majority of students use as their primary mode of transportation. Also, nearly 10% of faculty and 5% of staff use walking to get around campus. This is an excellent way to get around, it uses no gasoline fuel, and it is healthy which is an important part of overall sustainability.
To enhance pedestrian safety on campus, there are a number of infrastructure engineering techniques to increase safety. The Campus Area Transportation Study (CATS) agencies worked together to identify safety improvements to implement throughout the University District. These include curb-bump outs, continental crosswalks, road diets, lane narrowing, pedestrian signal improvements, and ADA accessible ramps. These features have been incorporated at various sites throughout campus.
Many encouragement programs for cycling address the needs of cyclists who choose to commute via bicycle. In some cases, the cyclist arrives on campus feeling sweaty and would like to freshen up before beginning the work or school day. To this end, it is convenient if showers are provided for bicycle riders to use on campus. The Business Instructional Facility (BIF) and Lincoln Hall have bicyclist showers for the staff and approved users. This option should be provided to other campus cyclists, to help encourage more bike riding.
The University is exploring options to provide indoor storage for bicycles, both for regular daily use by cyclists, and for long-term storage options for students leaving on break. Currently University policies restrict campus buildings from allowing bicycles indoors, so these efforts will require policy changes as well as physical changes to create a safe and protected space indoors for bicycles.
