Cycling to worship doesn't work for everyone. The distance between home and your religious centre might be too far to cycle for some people. Others may not be sufficiently mobile. But there are other ways you can cut back on your environmental impact.

Walking

Many people walk to and from Sabbath services at synagogues. Those of us who drive a short distance to our religious centre and are in a position to walk could be inspired by their example.

Lift sharing

There may already be people in your religious community who are sharing lifts to religious observances, or this activity might develop with some encouragement. You could tell people in your announcements, newsletter or on your noticeboard that you are a religious centre that encourages lift sharing.

To really help things along, you could put aside time every every few months to coordinate lift sharing:

• Circulate contact sheets, and invite people who have spare spaces in their car or who need a lift to fill it in with their name, phone number and where they live
• Get a volunteer to collate the details, and put people in touch with others who live in the same area

If your religious community is large, you might need to give some extra thought to how best to manage this process.

Over time, as people get used to lift sharing, they should start to coordinate themselves from week to week, and the process should get easier.

Car sharing

Car sharing can be undertaken on a small scale (for example, neighbours choosing to jointly own a car) or a large scale (car sharing companies that look after fleets of cars, and give their members access to these cars in a similar but easier way to standard car rental).

Ideas to promote car sharing: 

• Join a car sharing company as a faith community. Members of your religious community should then be able to be listed on your account
• Encourage your members to investigate taking out individual membership with a car sharing company. Car sharing companies in Australia include Flexicar (Melbourne and Sydney) and GoGet (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney).

Public transport

Ideas to encouraging your members to catch public transport to and from your religious centre:

• Tell people in your announcements/newsletter/on your noticeboard that you are a religious centre that encourages people to catch public transport
• If your religious centre isn't close to public transport, it may be possible to arrange to pick people up from (and drop them off at) the nearest station or bus stop.