ExConsumer Level 4: Level four members make an honest attempt to reduce the amount they drive each week by one major trip. This means that if you commute to work by car four days a week, and by bike one day a week, that you would commit to biking two days a week, and driving three. If you can’t change your commute, than use a different form of transit to get somewhere you’d usually drive to. Walk to the grocery store or take the bus to your book group. Sometimes it’s even easier not to go at all. Don’t feel like driving in traffic? Don’t do it.

Interested in signing up? Post a note and tell us about it on the Forum!

Why Drive Less? If you’re like most Americans, you probably want to drive less, but find it hard to do so. We’ve built our communities in such a way that the alternatives are generally inefficient and unpleasant. Walking on streets filled with traffic is often even less pleasant than driving on them. Public transit is made inefficient by low-density development, and lack of ridership. The odds, in every way, are stacked against level 4 members.

That said, there is probably no better way to quickly reduce your ecological footprint than to start driving less. The ramifications of reduced auto transit could be huge; reduced dependence on foreign oil, reduced pressure to drill in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, reduced greenhouse grass emissions, reduced tension from sitting in traffic, reduced spending on road construction, reduced sprawl, reduced consumption of unnecessary goods (if you have to carry your groceries home, you buy only what you need)... the list goes on. By re-directing money and attention to non-automotive forms of transit, the chance of those options improving and becoming more viable increases. This might be the most important side-effect of a level 4 resolution!