(Miami-Dade County, FL) -- As part of the County's Miami Earth Dade celebrations, Miami-Dade Transit is offering free-ride coupons for Metrobus and Metrorail on Monday, March 20, 2006 to encourage residents to use Public Transportation as part of their daily contribution to cleaner air and fuel conservation.

Commuters can print free-ride coupon here (PDF), or look for it in the March 15 and 16 editions of the Miami Herald, El Nuevo Herald, Miami Times, Miami Today, Haiti En Marche, Kiskeya Herald and Diario Las Americas. To ride-free and take advantage of Miami-Dade Transit's improved services, passengers must show the coupon to the bus operator or security officer at any Metrorail station. The coupon can be saved and used all day long for unlimited rides.

Customers can get Trip Planning assistance at Miami-Dade Transit's website: www.miamidade.gov/transit, or by calling 305-770-3131. Residents living south of Southwest 216th Street should call 305-891-3131.

Increased use of Public Transportation provides significant, direct environmental and health benefits and helps reduce smog-producing pollutants, greenhouse gases and run-off from paved surfaces that degrades the water supply.

Some facts about the environmental benefits of Transit (American Public Transportation Association):

• Public Transportation reduces annual emissions of the pollutants that create smog by more than 95,000 tons.
• Public Transportation reduces carbon monoxide (CO) emissions by nearly 745,000 tons annually, equal to nearly 75% of the CO emissions by all U.S. chemical manufacturers.
• Public Transportation reduces emissions of carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming, by more than 7.4 million tons a year.
• For every passenger mile traveled, Public Transportation produces only a fraction of the harmful pollution of automobile traffic: only 5% as much carbon monoxide, less than 8% as many volatile organic compounds and about half as much carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
• For every passenger mile, Public Transportation is twice as fuel efficient as cars.
• Public Transportation already saves more than 855 million gallons of gasoline or 45 million barrels of oil a year. The number is equivalent to the energy used to heat, cool and operate one-fourth of all American homes annually, or half the energy used to manufacture all computers and electronic equipment in America annually.
• If one in 10 Americans used Public Transportation regularly, the U.S. reliance on foreign oil could be cut by more than 40 percent - the amount we import from Saudi Arabia each year.