In all the time I've been writing for AutoblogGreen I've driven a great many different cars and trucks. Whether it's for ABG, Autoblog or my day job at Green Fuels Forecast, I drive most of these different vehicles to review them on one or more of the sites. From time to time, schedules work out in such a way that I may not have a car available with which to get home from the office. Most of the time I hitch a ride with one of my co-workers. On a couple of occasions my wife or daughter has come to pick me up and drive me home. The one thing that I haven't done - even though I have recommended it to people on this site - is ride the bus.

Last November, the Ann Arbor Transit Authority acquired its first twelve hybrid buses as part of a plan to replace the entire fleet with hybrids over the next three years. The buses are equipped with GM's Two-mode hybrid system and the engines are running on B20 biodiesel. The bus stop is about a block away from my downtown Ann Arbor office and drops me off about 4 blocks from my house. Thanks to my EVDO card I was able to finish two blog posts and answer some email on the thirty minute ride home (that's about twice as long as it takes to drive). The hybrid buses run a lot quieter than the conventional diesel-only buses since the hybrid system can provide power for acceleration reducing the need to rev the engine as much. If I didn't 't have review cars to drive most of the time, I would definitely take this as an option instead of driving my own car to the office. For those times when I have a gap in the schedule like today, I'll definitely be riding the bus.

Hey, Seattle's not the only town looking for people willing to dump their cars, at least temporarily. May marks Ann Arbor, Michigan's 4th annual Curb Your Car Month. All month, participants are encouraged to leave their cars at home and choose an alternative such as walking, biking, carpooling or public transit. One of the centerpieces of the month-long program is the Commuter Challenge, in which local businesses compete with one another to see which can get the most people involved in an alternative to the traditional commute.

Prizes for the challenge range from free scoops of ice cream to higher-value stuff like gratis movie and event tickets. Info on the initiative can be found here, and now that Spring is upon us, we're sure there's a good number of people who are actually out there enjoying the walk or bike ride to work. This is probably why Ann Arbor does this in May and not February.

[Source: GetDowntown.org via MLive]

The city of Ann Arbor, MI is replacing its entire municipal bus fleet over the next two years and all the new buses will be hybrids. The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority will be getting the first fifteen units this fall with the rest of the 69 vehicle fleet being supplanted during 2008 and early 2009. AATA provides transit bus services to the city and surrounding communities.

The extra cost of the first twenty buses is being covered by a federal grant, although it's not clear at this point how the other forty-nine buses will be paid for. The buses are being built by California-based Gillig and they use the GM Two-Mode hybrid system with a nickel metal hydride battery. The early experience of hybrid buses in Seattle proved to be disappointing with hybrid buses getting lower mileage than conventional buses. A later study conducted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory compared the hybrid and conventional buses over the same routes and duty cycles for a six-month period and found the hybrids to have a 27 percentage advantage.

[Source: MetroMode via YpsiDixit]

Michigan is known as the Great Lakes State since it borders on four of the five Great Lakes. Much of the state's economy is dependent at least in part on the supply of water from the lakes either to feed industry or tourism. For years that has been concern in the state about large scale bottlers taking the water from the lakes to package and sell at inflated prices. This has been a particular concern in recent years with dropping lake water levels.

Now the city of Ann Arbor and the state government are fighting back. The city council recently passed a resolution barring city vendors from selling commercial bottled water at city events. The city will start selling reusable water bottles that can be filled with tap water. Meanwhile the state is dropping the threshold for state approval to withdraw water from 2 million gallons a day to 1 million. Municipalities, utilities and large industrial companies will be required to implement water conservation policies. Needless to say bottlers are not happy about these policies and continue to claim that bottled water is healthier in spite of many studies showing that it is usually no better than most municipal tap water and often worse. Regardless of the qualities of bottled water, the fact is the huge quantities of plastic packaging and transportation consume a lot of energy needlessly.

[Source: Ann Arbor News]

Last October the University of Michigan teamed up with ZipCar to offer the car-sharing service for staff and students at the Ann Arbor School. There are currently six cars available at three different campus locations around town and the service has been growing in use ever since. The Ann Arbor News has an interview with a U-M representative about the program.

So far students have been the main users of the service. Unfortunately their use is limited because the insurance company requires users to be twenty-one and older. Many of the students at U-M fall below that threshold and the university is actively working with the insurance company to lower that limit. Check out the interview at the Read link.

[Source: Ann Arbor News]

The Exhibit Museum of Natural History at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor is holding a series of public discussions on environmental issues. The meetings include scientists from the University and are free of charge.

The first two meetings cover The Climate WILL Change: Now What? and Ideas for Reducing Your Carbon Footprint. If you're in the Ann Arbor area drop into the Arbor Brewing Company on Washington St. from 5:30-7:30pm on January 24 and February 21 respectively. The carbon footprint reduction session will include U-M Biological Station director and ecologist Knute Nadelhoffer and City of Ann Arbor Energy Coordinator Dave Konkle

[Source: U-M Exhibit Museum]

The fast growing car sharing/short term rental service ZipCar is starting up their service in Ann Arbor, MI on November 1. The company will be making six vehicles available from three different locations on the University of Michigan central campus, north campus and medical campus. The company is actually working with the university, which wants to reduce the number of cars on campus. Open parking spaces in central Ann Arbor are notoriously hard to find and if people in the campus area can avoid having to drive downtown, but still have a viable transportation option it would definitely help.

The University of Michigan will guarantee a minimum revenue level for ZipCar and also provide designated parking spaces for the cars. The service will allow University employees to leave their cars at home but still have a means to get across campus when necessary. If the program works out and is popular, U of M will expand the fleet.

[Source: Ann Arbor News]