This article is adapted from a shorter op-ed in our latest Express newsletter. To Keep up with The Mobility Lab-ians, subscribe to the Express.
Tying extreme weather events to climate change might be part of the reason why an increasing majority of Americans believe that human-caused global warming is real, as reported in a recent article from the New York Times.
Weather is emotional and personal. It’s something that everybody experiences – kind of like single occupancy vehicle traffic.
Traffic is one of many negative byproducts of our car-first infrastructure and sprawling land use. But unlike air pollution and poor public health, most Americans experience traffic every single day. Viscerally.
A study from the National Institutes of Health found that when people were sitting in a warm room, they were more likely to believe in global warming. So should transportation demand managers target drivers with pro-transit and carpool messaging while they’re stuck in traffic?
Commuter Connections, a network of transportation management organizations in the Washington, DC region, is trying this out. It began airing a short radio commercial that spells out how carpooling makes people happier and saves them time and money. What’s key: a lot of people listen to the radio in their cars.
Radio is great and all, but one way to really get the attention of people stuck in traffic: billboards. Even the CEO of Lamar Advertising – a company that owns over 175,000 billboards across the country – has credited worsening traffic with boosting their business.
So here are some notable pro-transit highway billboards – we hope to see more of them soon.
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