Steven D. Lee

Steven D. Lee

Steven D. Lee

DTAC has not met officially since this year's representatives were appointed.  However, DTAC representatives were invited to participate in a sustainability seminar.  The seminar lasted from 1 to 4 pm and was with the consulting group that is helping the Campus Sustainability Committee meet new, more stringent greenhouse gas emission standards of the President's Climate Commitment.

One interesting point that was made is that the Duke University fleet of vehicles (including busses) only makes up 5% of our transportation related emissions.  Commuting by students, staff and faculty makes up 52% and air travel by faculty and staff makes up 43%.  

The rest of the seminar was spent discussing potential ways to reduce these transportation related emissions.  The Air Travel section was met with a lot of resistance by the administrators present.  Reducing the amount of air travel by utilizing alternatives like tele-conferencing and video-conferencing or traveling by hybrid car was not popular.  

However, the ideas to reduce fleet emissions or commuter emissions were very creative and energetically discussed.

Our comments have been well received since Grad and Professional students are well prepared and are both prompt and attentive.  However, ideas for change in respect to transportation are met with resistance.

May want to consider setting up a task force to interact with the Durham City Government.  Many of the issues dealing with GnP students and transportation also involve the city.  Working to get communication between directly between GPSC and Durham city council could help us to advocate more effectively.  Many ideas put forth to improve the lives of grad students require collaboration with the city and are thus rejected by the Duke administrators.  Just a thought...

None

The DTAC chair held a special meeting with DTAC, the Sustainability Office, and a transportation consulting firm (VHB) to examine Duke's greenhouse gas emissions and possible strategies to reduce them. Transportation-related emissions are a sizable portion of the campus' total ghg budget, with about equal portions related to automobile travel (to and from campus for employees and students) and air travel (excluding staff/student vacation travel). Fleet vehicles comprise a relatively small portion of the transportation-related emissions, but present a very visible source since busses and service vehicles are running nearly continuously around campus. While reduction to air travel emissions may be difficult to address (and require additional data about this source), committee members presented a number of ideas and gave feedback to the consulting firm. The consultants, who have been working with Duke for several years, are expected to use our suggestions and present us with some possible plans sometime in the next calendar year. 

Since GnP students represent a sizable portion of commuters, both to and from campus on a daily basis as well as with air travel to conferences, and since our travel behaviors are similar to staff and faculty, our opinions seem of great importance to this committee. GnP had representation at this meeting from both graduate (PhD) and professional students who bring a breadth of experience and highlight the variety of transportation and parking needs of our constituents. I'm confident that we'll continue to be invited to provide feedback throughout this process. 

GPSC will be very helpful in promoting some of the new programs, such as improved benefits for carpooling, flex-cars, revised bus service, etc.

no other comments at this time.

DTAC chairperson, Chuck Catotti convened a pre-meeting luncheon with all student DTAC reps (GPSC and DSG) to discuss the charge of the committee and give us some background on current and future plans. One of the primary interests of Parking and Transportation Services is to help Duke comply with its environmental sustainability goals and to reduce the number of vehicle miles employees and students travel to and from campus. This reduction will may involve improving bus service (both Duke transit and regional busses) and providing better alternatives than single-occupant drivers. While construction of a new parking garage will start soon, there are still a number of questions about the best way to allocate parking permits and how much they should cost.

The committee chair appears to take GnP student concerns seriously and values our input. Since GnP students' transportation habits are more akin to the staff/faculty, we are able to provide useful feedback.

No issues yet, but we'll let you know.

It has been suggested that committee reps are selected in the spring of the previous year so they are able to serve over the summer and at the beginning of the academic year (we haven't had an official DTAC meeting yet this year).