Utah next month will become the first state to institute a mandatory four-day work week for most state employees, following the example of other local governments across the nation that are trying to scale back energy costs:

Gov. Jon Huntsman, a first-term Republican, says he’s making the change to reduce the state’s carbon footprint, increase energy efficiency, improve customer service and provide workers more flexibility.
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The change will apply to about 17,000 employees, roughly 80% of the state workforce, Huntsman says. Public universities, the state court system, prisons and other critical services will be exempt. Residents still will have sufficient access to state offices, many staying open from 7 a.m.- 6 p.m., and more than 800 state services are available online, he says.

The story doesn’t say how many hours employees would have to work on each of those four days to make up for the lost fifth day, but another USA Today story says employees in other places that have switched to four-day weeks generally work four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. For the most part, the changes are being driven by rising gas prices — employees have requested shorter workweeks to cut back on driving costs.

Utah’s goal is to cut back energy use by 20 percent by 2015.

Hawaii’s goal is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels by 2020. It will be interesting to see if any work week changes will be considered here, where the average price of gas today is $4.34, compared to Utah, where the average price is $4.10 today. I’m guessing that the average commute for someone in Hawaii compared to someone in Utah may be shorter, but seeing how traffic is becoming increasingly congested here, well, I’m not sure.

Our ears perked up over at the Advertiser at reports of some rural schools on the mainland switching to four-day school weeks because of high energy costs, both for the school and students, who may have to commute from far away. After a few calls, however, I couldn’t find any schools here, including the colleges and universities, that were considering switching to a four-day school week.

Hawaii’s seven community colleges statewide “are in geographic regions that are supposedly in people’s neighborhoods,” Susan Lee, marketing director for the UH community college system, told me.

The community college system also offers education through outreach centers or extension programs in rural or less-served areas, Lee said. “I think we just try to reach out to the students in that sense,” she added.

Just something to think about as many of us enjoy this four-day week. I guess we’ll see what happens when gas hits $5 a gallon …

For three Saturdays in August, a 6.9-mile route in New York City stretching from lower Manhattan to the Upper East Side will be closed to all cars, trucks and buses from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday.

The three no-car zone Saturdays, called Summer Streets, are just an experiment, Bloomberg said, according to an article in the NYT today.

Fitness, dance and yoga classes will be held along the route on those days.

What’s the point of this crazy exercise? Well, exercise, for one.

“It’s a new way to use a street, using it more as a park than as a thoroughfare,” said Paul Steely White, the executive director of Transportation Alternatives, an advocacy group promoting walking, bicycling and mass transit that worked with the city to develop the car-free zone.

“Everyone around the world knows about Park Avenue as one of New York City’s most storied thoroughfares, and to turn that over to pedestrians and cyclists, even though it’s just for three consecutive Saturdays, I think that sends a very powerful message that the tide is turning so that bicyclists and pedestrians are on at least an equal footing with drivers.”

That got me thinking about whether the same initiative could be accomplished here in Hawaii. Whenever there are parades in Waikiki, it causes traffic commotion in my neighborhood. But, quite honestly, it’s kind of nice sometimes to walk up and down Kalakaua Avenue when all the cars and trolleys have been forced to go someplace else and the street is decked out with food booths and music stages.

I’ve become increasingly disturbed by how filled with cars Oahu roads have become, and how clingy drivers are to their vehicles. When did we reach the point where we can’t live without our cars?

A friend from the Mainland visited recently and remarked with surprise that we seemed to encounter traffic regardless of the time of day, regardless of where we were in Honolulu. Of all the things she had imagined about Hawaii, sitting on a hot highway in bumper-to-bumper traffic wasn’t one of them.

Let’s think about this. A 6.9-mile stretch of streets in Honolulu would go, for example, from Aloha Tower Marketplace, along Ala Moana Boulevard, down Kalakaua Avenue, up Diamond Head Avenue and almost reach Kahala Mall. Would it ever work?

I can hear the horns honking in Paradise now … Ah, reminds me of New York!

Photo by Akemi Hiatt for the Advertiser.

Stolen from the Advertiser breaking news roll: Results from the fourth annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test show Hawaii drivers are in 45th place in basic driving knowledge.

Kansas had the most knowledgeable drivers in the nation, with an average score of 84 percent, followed by Wyoming and Nebraska. The average score for Hawaii drivers was 76.3 percent.

Is this just because Hawaii drivers don’t know what to do with their fog lights? Or are there other, more fundamental problems?

Other key findings:

• If taken today, 16.4 percent of drivers on the road – amounting to roughly 33 million licensed Americans – would not pass a written drivers test exam

• The national average score was 78.1 percent

• Kansas drivers ranked first in the nation (average score of 84.0 percent; New Jersey drivers ranked last (average score of 69.9 percent)

• With Age Comes Wisdom: The older the driver, the higher the test score

• While average test scores between the genders were similar, women were more likely to fail the test than men (20 percent versus 13 percent)

As Father’s Day is coming up this weekend, I have my dad to thank for teaching me how to drive. He was very patient and spent many long hours circling the parking lot at Manoa Elementary with me. He even accompanied me to take the driver’s test not once, not twice, but THREE times.

So, ultimately, I like to think that my driving style is more like that of a Mainland haole guy (which Dad is) than an Asian woman (which I am — well, half anyway). Um, right.

Want to see how you would score? Test your basic driving knowledge here.

And Happy Father’s Day!