Last month, the City of Kingston’s Mayor Bryan Paterson challenged Thunder Bay’s Mayor Bill Mauro to a friendly competition to see who could get the highest number of Commuter Challenge participants. The City of Kingston won the competition with 1,388 participants, while the City of Thunder Bay had 1,107. 

Commuter Challenge is an annual event, held across Canada June 2-8, which invites residents to leave their cars at home and bike, walk, bus, roll, car pool or telecommute to work.

The two cities agreed that the city with the highest number of Commuter Challenge participants would be named the winner and hand over a shirt quintessential to that place, which the losing city’s mayor would wear while raising the other city’s flag.

Today at City Hall, Mayor Mauro wore a City of Kingston shirt while raising the City of Kingston’s flag.

“This was a friendly competition and our goal was to promote the positive impact commuting has on our health and the environment. I am proud of Thunder Bay as this was our best year ever and we came second in the country for percent of population participating,” said Mayor Bill Mauro. “I appreciate Mayor Bryan Paterson for challenging our city to this competition and look forward to challenging the City of Kingston next year.”

For more information on the Commuter Challenge, visit: commuterchallenge.ca 

 

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Contact:       Amy Coomes – Sustainability Coordinator, 684-3217