Solo drivers were encouraged to find a friend to carpool with at the Car Free Day Long Island Rally Friday. Nearly a million Long Islanders drive alone, but roughly 3,745 pledged to change their habits to help lower environmentally harmful carbon emissions.
A panel of speakers at Farmingdale State College held the rally to motivate drivers to set aside their car keys for a day and explore alternative transportation options. These alternatives include the Long Island Rail Road, buses, carpooling, vanpooling, bicycles, and walking. The event marked the a week filled with activities promoting walkability, bicycle parades, and an electric vehicle showcase.
Last year, 2,461 Long Islanders took the pledge to be car free, saving 27 tons of carbon emissions, at the 11th annual Car Free Day. This year about a thousand more Long Islanders took the pledge and are on track to save 80 tons of emissions, roughly a 40% increase. Pledges from local colleges and hospitals have raised the pledges higher than ever.
Dr. John Nader, president of Farmingdale State College, took the stage to recognize keynote speaker Sam Schwartz, known as “Gridlock Sam,” who authored the book “No One At the Wheel: Driverless Cars and the Road of the Future.” It is about the driverless vehicle revolution that can transform highways, cities, workplaces and laws across the globe.
Schwartz is a transportation engineer, columnist, author, and former New York City traffic commissioner.
“I am pleased to report to you this morning,” Nader said, “that last year our campus shuttle that runs to and from the Long Island Railroad Station transported more than 25,000 students over the course of the academic year. We are actually (I checked the numbers yesterday) trending ahead of that this year.”
Farmingdale State College initiated a successful bike share program on campus in collaboration with Bethpage Federal Credit Union, resulting in substantial financial benefits through energy savings and rebates. Additionally, the college secured three grants for the Offshore Wind Training Institute, supporting advancements in wind turbine technology.
Schwartz, the keynote speaker, acknowledged the significance of the rally, which coincided with the year’s most significant gridlock alert day. He commended the organizers for their efforts to alleviate traffic congestion and reduce emissions.
At the podium, he drew attention to the connection between climate change and recent major disasters like the wildfires in Canada and Maui, emphasizing that emissions of greenhouse gases are causing the planet to warm and that scientists have predicted this happening for years.
Schwartz emphasized the transportation sector’s substantial contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and called for less driving through carpooling and consolidating trips.
“Currently, only 11% of Long Island commuters take transit,” he said. “If we simply get that up to 20%, that’s not a big number, there will be a 10% drop in greenhouse gases by those people that are commuting. Only 7% carpool. This is a very lonely place to drive. Most people love driving alone in their cars.”
Beyond emissions reduction, fewer cars on the road could open up opportunities for sustainable alternatives such as bicycle lanes and wider sidewalks. Schwartz underscored the importance of safety, noting the high number of accidents in Nassau and Suffolk counties with “75,000 crashes in Nassau and Suffolk last year in 2022.”
He added, “It doesn’t look like it’s getting any better.”
Compared to the city, the death rate per 100,000 on Long Island in car accidents is about 140% higher. “And that’s because people on Long Island drive way more than people in New York City,” Schwartz said.
Expansion and additions to the Long Island Rail Road and NICE Bus schedule were both ways mentioned at the rally that residents could use to ditch their car for the day and let someone else do the driving.
