Promoting Sustainable Transportation with Campus Car Policies and Public Outreach

In fall of 2016 at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB), the Environmental Studies undergraduate program began offering its first group-based capstone course that was based on its first Projects for Sustainable City Year course (ENSTU 471). Capstone projects are a senior-level, project based graduation requirement for an undergraduate degree. The Sustainable City Year projects focused on increasing sustainable transportation at two locations; one in the nearby city of Salinas, California, and one on the CSUMB campus. A majority of the community in Salinas drive which has limited the quality and effectiveness of the shuttle system provided by Monterey-Salinas Transit (MST). Our group seeks to help increase ridership and promote sustainable transportation in this region. At CSUMB, traffic congestion on campus is increasingly problematic as the student body continues to row. The majority of students drive to campus in single passenger vehicles which increases the traffic on campus. Sustainable transportation via buses, bicycling, and carpooling helps decrease traffic congestion. In the following paper, the CSUMB project covers a proposed freshman vehicle restriction policy to encourage sustainable modes of transportation and a bus-bicycle culture. For the Salinas project, we worked directly with MST to encourage common knowledge of bus usage by creating an informational and interactive booklet