Top Performers in Los Altos and Los Altos Hills in Drive Less Challenge

Top performers in the Drive Less Challenge contest for Los Altos and Los Altos Hills were honored at the GreenTown Los Altos Bike, Walk, Win! Party on Thursday, May 10 at 359 State St. Bicycles. 

About 60 people attended, including a number of riders on their bicycle commute home on Bike to Work Day.

Brooke Ray Smith took top honors with the most “green miles” (over 600), including 159 miles commuting by bike during the two-week contest. Her efforts avoided over 330 pounds of CO2 emissions. Brooke Ray lives in San Francisco and commutes to Los Altos by train, riding her bike to and from the train stations. One day each week, she bicycles to work, sometimes taking the train to the Millbrae stations and bicycling the rest of the way.  Much of her bike trip is on the beautiful trail that runs along the bay.  

With the help of Brooke Ray and over 160 other participants, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills was ended the contest as the #1 community in the region-wide contest that included many much larger cities. 

In terms of total “green miles” (miles traveled by alternative means such as carpooling, walking, biking, or taking the bus or train) and in emissions avoided, our community performed better than second-, third- and fourth-place finishers:  Foster City, Palo Alto and Sunnyvale. 

This was a significant improvement over last year’s fifth place finish.  Together, we tallied over 10,000 green miles and avoided over 6,000 pounds of CO2 emissions.

Other prize winners honored in Los Altos on Thursday night, included:

• Second Place Overall “Git Around Green” Award:  Gary Segar
• “Thank Goodness for Worplace Showers” Awards:  Rich Hill, Nanci Scharfen and Steve Folkman
• “Double Century” Awards:  Lucy Hsu, Kimberly Beck and Susanne Jul
• “Wheels on the Bus Go ‘Round and ‘Round” Award:  Sue Young
• “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’” Award:  Jeanne Evilsizer
• “Electric Errands” Award:  Doug Hahn
• “Busy Biker” Award:  Gary Hedden

Awards were also given in student categories, and the winners were:

• “Century Club” Award:  Jarrod Hsu
• “Reliable Rider” Awards:  Christina Segar, Dylan Weitz and Amy Linker
• “Karpooling Kids” Awards:  Mitchell Kita, Matthew Leong and Cindy Linker

For a complete list of the prizes awarded and the specific accomplishments of the winners, please visit the GreenTown Los Altos website. 

Congratulations to all our winners!  We hope they continue their environmentally healthy ways of driving less.  They are all an inspiration to other members of our community to try out new ways of getting around.

Many businesses in town were prize sponsors for the event and we’d like to thank these businesses for their support:

• Los Altos
• Gourmet Works
• Sudam Korean Cuisine
• Sumo Sushi Boat