Making UUCA More Welcoming and More Environmentally Friendly--No Capital Required!

How can the church become more welcoming, increase diversity, facilitate travel to the church, be a good environmental steward, and avoid unnecessary capital expenditures? Increased use of alternate forms of transportation can help us achieve all those objectives.

I think it's great that the UUCA web site offers some public transit info on its Locations and Directions page (http://www.uucava.org/page/locations-and-directions)--the site indicates that the church is served by the 22A, 4A, and 4B routes.

In addition to the routes mentioned, other routes serving this location include the 4H, 4E, 10B, 23A, 23C, and the ART41. UUCA can't possibly and shouldn't attempt to keep up with all the routes serving the church, so instead of identifying specfic routes--and giving the impression that those are the only routes serving the church--I believe the UUCA web site should link to the following WMATA pages:

- the desktop homepage (www.wmata.com);
- the desktop Trip Planner (http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/tripplanner/tripplanner_form_solo.cfm);
- the desktop Next Bus Arrivals site (http://www.wmata.com/rider_tools/nextbus/arrivals.cfm) and the mobile Next Bus Arrivals site;
- the mobile homepage (http://www.wmata.com/mobile/);
- the mobile Plan a Trip (http://www.wmata.com/mobile/plantrip/index.cfm?nocache);
- the mobile Next Bus site (http://wmata.nextbus.com/customStopSelector/adaRoute.jsp?a=wmata&am...).

Tags: capital campaign, environment, transit, welcoming

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by UUCAVA on September 20, 2010 at 11:22am

Great ideas Stuart. I've added a link to the Mobile Trip Planner and then one to this discussion so that as other ideas are added here, they will be accessible to the Maps & Discussions page. There are likely hundreds of ways to be more green in our commute to the church. It won't be user friendly to add them all, thus pushing the map widget further down the maps and directions page. So additing a link to this discussion, is a good solution. June

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Permalink Reply by Laura Dely on November 27, 2010 at 1:24pm

Hey Stu -- I just stumbled upon this today, months after you posted this.
I think it is too confusing to post so many links, which I believe are all found on the Trip Planner page. THAT's the one to have on UUCA's site, and the ministers should help guide people to go there, and maybe the clunker people could set up some lap tops in fellowship hall to show people how easy it is to find alt transportation to church.
Just some more ideas about how we might restart the effort to reduce individual trips to church.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Bayldon on November 28, 2010 at 11:26am

Don't forget UUCA is also easily accessible by bicycle. It is not far from the Four Mile Run trail if you get off at Abingdon Road and ride up to the service road along Route 50 (and turn right). Also the Arlington County trail that is a mix of side streets, service roads and short connecting segments runs along Arlington Boulevard west to the edge of the county on both sides of Route 50. It can be continued on Fairfax County service roads easily to Seven Corners and also runs east to Fort Myers and the Iwo Jima memorial. The Custis Trail along 66 has a Ballston exit ramp and there are many marked bike lanes on Arlington streets.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Dely on March 10, 2013 at 7:40pm

Hey Stu--

Thanks for adding the transit info to the Directions page. I think the Commuter Page with links to the Art Bus info and telephone (it doesm't have a "trip planner" option, but you can call them and get help planning your trip.

Also the 4A runs right past the church, weekdays, and I think Sat. too, until 7 pm.

Also, we need a "car-free" access sticker for UUCA attendees. Sarah Masters could probably provide something or you could grab something from the Internet and print them on Avery minilabels that come on letter sized sheets. That's easy. Maybe you could get a different symbol for the type of transit used.

Once you get that going at UUCA, you could take it to the Intefaith Council. Post the program on your Transit site. It's one aspect of "greening" your meeting.

Do you have a Spring "Car-Free" transit day?

So many ideas -- sorry to burden you.

Best-