Ever been bothered by the waste of time incurred from waiting at intersections? What about the gas that you burn and emissions produced while sitting idle?

Bottom Line: Join the Challenge - keep track of miles and minutes biked and compare to other cyclists around the region.

Did you know that 40% of all urban travel in the US happens within 2 miles of where people live? Nearly all of that travel is by car!  Switching the bike travel for these shorts trips is a great way to lower your carbon footprint and get healthy at the same time.

While May's Team Bike Challenge and Bike to Work Day have come and gone, gung-ho cyclists can keep track of their daily mileage and minutes biked - and compare their stats with those of cyclists around the region - all year long using the new iBikeChallenge app. The app uses your iPhones GPS to track daily miles and posts those miles on a monthly leaderboard.

Lots of people would like to take transit to work, but for many, the distance between their work and the nearest Caltrain or SamTrans station is too far to walk. A recent survey by the Alliance found that distance from work to transit station was the second most cited reason for not taking transit for a commute.

Carpooling saves money, saves resources, and can save the air. But where do you go to find carpool partners to share rides to work? Just visit Commute.org where you can quickly create a profile and find commuters who have similar travel routes and schedules with whom you can share a ride.  The system lets you easily send potential rideshare partners an e-mail or give them a call.

On bicycle boulevards such as the one in Palo Alto along Bryant Street, the use of traffic calming devices like chokers and diverters eliminates most auto traffic while permitting bicycle and pedestrian through traffic. The result is significantly reduced auto traffic and much higher bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

Austin Mader-Clark, an avid walker, cyclist, airplane pilot and passionate advocate for alternative, non-petroleum-based fuels, challenges others to "fill their tank and save the world" with her innovative new approach to making alternative fuel available in a centralized and convenient location. On Earth Day 2008 she opened Autopia Biofuels located at 1025 South Railroad Avenue in downtown San Mateo.

Almost any diesel car can run on biodiesel without major modifications. Biodiesel is a clean burning alternative fuel produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. These blends are sold using a system called the "B factor," which denotes the percentage of biodiesel contained within a petrol/bio mix. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

Only diesel engines can run on biodiesel. All engines that run on #2 diesel can also be run on biodiesel. This means, home furnaces, generators, half-trucks, homestead tools, fishing boats, etc.