TEAM OF CALTRAIN, BART, FERRY RIDERS BEAT AUTO COMMUTERS IN RACE TO SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS GAME

Giants Fans Beat Veteran Traffic Reporters In "Race To The Plate;" Race Highlights Benefits of Using Public Transportation to Commute to Work to Overcome Bay Area Traffic

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- April 14, 2003 -- In a race that demonstrates the advantages of using public transportation over solo auto commuting, a team of Giants fans using Caltrain, BART, the Golden Gate Ferry and Muni beat a team of Bay Area traffic reporters driving in their cars in the inaugural "Commuter Challenge: Race to the Plate." The race pitted a driver against a public transportation rider on three of the most popular Bay Area commute lanes - starting in Palo Alto, Concord and Larkspur and ending at Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco in time for tonight's game.

Sponsored by the Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance, Caltrain and the San Francisco Giants, the race featured a public transportation team of Giants fans selected through an on-air promotion on KNBR. The driving team featured some of the Bay Area's best-known traffic reporters, including Joe McConnell from ABC-7, KQED and KBLX, Renee Brinkley from KNBR, and Sal Castaneda of KTVU.

The race was designed to demonstrate the overall benefits of using public transportation over solo auto commuting. In addition to the competitive time comparisons between transit and driving, public transportation can provide a productive and stress-free environment. In some cases, transit can also be less expensive than driving. To demonstrate the productivity benefits of using public transportation, all racers were required to complete a series of tasks in order to officially cross the finish line. These tasks included answering questions about specific articles in the newspaper, calling in to a public transportation hotline, and completing word search puzzles. The tasks, which could be completed by the transit riders on-board, but by the drivers only once parked, added approximately 35 minutes to each driver's time and were designed to represent the ability to complete work during the average commuter's drive and ride time.

The cumulative time of the public transportation team was three hours and five minutes, compared to a cumulative time of five hours and three minutes for the driving team. From a starting point at the Concord BART station, public transportation team member Steve Phinney took BART to the Embarcadero station and then transferred to the Muni to Pacific Bell Park at a time of 51 minutes, while Sal Castaneda from the driving team drove the freeways of the East Bay and over the Oakland Bay Bridge to arrive at the finish line at a time of one hour and 53 minutes. From the starting point at the Palo Alto Caltrain station, Vince Bainter, competing on the public transportation team, took Caltrain to the San Francisco Caltrain Depot and walked to Pacific Bell Park for a finishing time of one hour and 17 minutes, while Joe McConnell drove up the 101 and 280 freeways to cross the finish line in one hour and 37 minutes. For the Marin race leg, public transportation team member Jim Venenciano took the Golden Gate Ferry to the San Francisco Ferry Terminal and then took the Muni to Pacific Bell Park for a total time of 57 minutes, while Renee Brinkley drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and through San Francisco to arrive at the finish line in one hour and 32 minutes.

"Even without the added tasks that the drivers had to do once parked, the total cumulative team time for the transit riders was faster than the drivers," said Christine Maley-Grubl, executive director of the Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance. "Of the more than 3.3 million people in the Bay Area who commute to work each day, more than 70 percent of them drive to work alone. Bay Area commuters spend more than 155,000 extra hours in traffic - that's 17 years and more than $1.8 million of wasted productivity per day. We're working with concerned Peninsula cities and Bay Area employers to help reduce the cost and stress of commuter travel, increase the attendance and productivity of employees and improve the quality of life in the Bay Area."

The racers were off and running beginning at 5:00 p.m. today, in the heat of the Bay Area commuting crunch. Shortly after the winning team had all three members cross the finish line in front of Pacific Bell Park, they were escorted into the ballpark for a brief ceremony before the start of the game.

The public transportation riders were chosen from a promotion sponsored by KNBR. In addition to participating in the event and the home plate ceremony, these fans won a variety of prizes, including two tickets to tonight's Giants game, approximately $100 in transit vouchers each, and Giants memorabilia.

More than 11 percent of Bay Area workers commute two hours a day -one hour in each direction. Almost 70 percent of the Bay Area's carbon monoxide comes from motor vehicles.