To adjust, some of us are bringing lunch from home rather than eating out, some of us are doing without that double tall mocha and many of us are trying transit and other alternatives to driving to work.

In fact, transit ridership across the Puget Sound region has increased significantly in the last year. For example, Sounder ridership increased by 27 percent from 2006 to 2007; that’s more than 2 million passengers in 2007.

But many of us do not have safe, reliable and convenient alternatives to driving, even if we’d love to leave our car at home and avoid buying all those expensive tanks of gas.

Relief from soaring gas prices is on the way, however. The Legislature recently enacted the ground-breaking Climate Action and Green Jobs Act.

This law sets the stage for encouraging people to drive less. It will result in transportation investments that increase personal choices for all Washingtonians – choices people want. It sets state benchmarks to reduce per capita vehicle miles traveled (policy-speak for “driving less”) and launches a collaborative stakeholder process to identify “best practices” that are already being used in our state and across the nation.

This law employs a “toolbox” approach to transportation planning, rather than relying on mandates or limits to how much you can drive. In other words, this means that what works to encourage less driving in Tacoma might not work for Orting.

For example, if you’re a commuter from Sumner, this might mean providing more train service to downtown Seattle and offering your employer a tax break in exchange for paying for your train pass.

If you’re a working parent in Lakewood, it might mean an investment in a safe, well-lit walking or biking route to your neighborhood school so your child could walk or bike rather than having you drop him or her off every day.

If you have to drive for a job based in downtown Tacoma, it might mean having access to the company Zipcar membership, so you can leave your car at home but still do the driving necessary for your job.

Providing communities with more transportation choices, and individuals with more flexibility, will result in a transportation system that improves our economy. Traffic congestion wreaks havoc on our work force productivity and on our pocketbooks.

In the Puget Sound region, workers spend 48 hours per year stuck in traffic; that’s about a week of work. We also lose $1.4 billion annually because of lost time and excess fuel consumption.

While we can’t control the price of gas, we can certainly provide our work force with faster, more reliable and more flexible commutes, a crucial part of maintaining our region’s competitive edge.

Reducing drive-alone trips will also improve our environment. Transportation is now the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Washington, accounting for roughly 50 percent of our state’s emissions. To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, we need to drive vehicles with cleaner fuels, drive more efficient vehicles, and drive less.

Washington has made progress on cleaner fuels and more efficient vehicles. With the Climate Action and Green Jobs Act, we now are laying the groundwork for a comprehensive strategy to develop transportation systems that give people more choices and more flexibility and, ultimately, result in less driving.

This law takes the first steps in developing those kinds of smart transportation choices. These transportation investments can be good for our pocketbooks, good for the environment and good for the economy, all at the same time.

Jessyn Farrell of Tacoma is executive director of the Transportation Choices Coalition. For more information, go to www.transportationchoices.org.