Throughout October, UCLA Transportation hosted Sustainable Transportation Month, an annual celebration that draws attention to a variety of programs and services available to all UCLA students and employees, including bike resources, free and subsidized public transit passes, and discounted carpool permits.
These convenient and low-cost commute options not only offer personal benefits to commuters— such as improved physical and mental health, cost savings, reduced traffic congestion and air pollution and healthier communities— they also help UCLA meet its sustainability goals by reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips to campus and lowering the campus carbon footprint.
As part of the monthlong slate of activities and events designed to help Bruins learn the benefits of ditching the drive, organizers collected pledges from those who promised to try walking, biking, carpooling, taking transit or telecommuting. Some of those individuals were randomly selected to receive prizes, including Target gift cards and UCLA football tickets. As a result, more than 1,500 Bruins committed to replacing a drive-alone trip to campus with a more sustainable alternative.
In addition to outreach events and free giveaways at LuValle Commons, the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Rendezvous at Rieber Terrace, a Sustainable Transportation Month Fair was held in Bruin Plaza. There, hundreds of attendees learned more about Transportation’s offerings and promotions, received answers to their transportation questions and spun a prize wheel.
Transportation providers and campus organizations, including Big Blue Bus, Culver CityBus, LA Metro, Long Beach Transit, LADOT Transit, Santa Clarita Transit, Campus Life Commuter Support & Programs, UCLA Zero Waste, the Community Programs Office and the Healthy Campus Initiative were also in attendance and shared information. Metro Bike Share also hosted a scavenger hunt on campus and around Westwood Village to promote navigating UCLA on two wheels.
There have been a number of notable highlights of our campus’s sustainable transportation efforts in 2023. Among them:
- A new fare-free unlimited access transit pass for UCLA’s undergraduate students
- A new lower-priced Commuter All Access Pass
- Return of the Earn-A-Bike program for eligible employees and graduate students
- Renewal of the campus’s Bicycle Friendly University Gold-level designation
