Earth Week as an opportunity to market transit/biking: April 25th as National Get on Board Day

Monday was Earth Day and I didn't get around to finishing a post about it....  The basic point is that one day isn't enough time to focus on the environment.  Some argue that April is "Earth Month" but you don't see a lot of promotion for it.

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My first job in DC was at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a food advocacy group. A primary focus originally was supporting the organizing around National Food Day, a one-day event. At some point, the director realized that spending all year working on a one day event wasn't the best use of resources, including time, and didn't result in the achievement of structural change goals and objectives, so they shifted the focus away from Food Day and towards focused advocacy and health communications.
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Others, that the week of Earth Day should be programmed as Earth Week.
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That's my inclination, although focusing everything on one week is tough too, and it's probably better to program over the course of the month.

I can see a few ways to program different subjects for particular days during an Earth Week:

-- transit/mobility
-- climate change
-- water
-- resource use and sustainability
-- energy
-- + an expo, for example, Montgomery County, Maryland has its annual GreenFest on Sunday, April 28th, at Brookside Gardens.

Transit/Mobility and Earth Week Promotions

-- On Earth Day Monday, the Capital Bikeshare program in DC offered free rides ("Capital BikeShare is free on Earth Day," WTOP-radio), as did other bike share programs like Divvy in Chicago and CoCo in Columbus, Ohio.

-- In Los Angeles County, all transit--railroad, heavy rail, light rail, and bus and bike share--was free on Monday ("Buses and Trains Throughout LA County Are Fare-Free for Earth Day," NBCSoCal) for services provided by LA Metro, Metrolink, and bus services in the City of Los Angeles.

The commuter rail line Metrolink extended free service beyond LA County to its entire service area, which includes Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, a wee bit of San Diego, and Ventura Counties.

Thursday is "National Get on Board Day," sponsored by the American Public Transportation Association.

Today, one of the agencies participating is the City of Knoxville ("our car home Thursday — the city of Knoxville is offering free rides," Knoxville News-Sentinel) .

An event like this lends itself to media coverage.

More than 200 transit agencies are participating in some form.  For example, BART in the SF Bay area isn't offering free transit, but 1,000 riders will be able to win free transit tickets.

National Get on Board Day Infographic, APTA