Metro and transit agencies across the country are celebrating Dump the Pump Day to encourage all of us to leave our cars at home and try out transit and ride sharing to save money, improve mobility and help our environment. Here’s the release from Metro:

This year to celebrate National Dump the Pump Day today, June 20, Metro is working hard to develop a 21st Century transit system so that the people of Los Angeles County can dump the pump with increasing ease.

“To save money on gas, reduce congestion and improve air quality, Los AngelesCounty residents are invited to try public transportation or carpool today,” said Metro Board Chair and L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich. “And tomorrow we’re breaking ground on a new Metrolink station, linking our commuter rail service from the AntelopeValley to BobHopeAirport.”

With increasing options, it’s easier than ever to abandon our cars. During the past 20 years Metro opened nearly 88 miles of rail. It has three rail projects now in the works and scheduled to open over the next couple of years. Together those projects will add 26 more miles of rail. (Two additional rail projects will be under construction soon.) Last fall Metro opened the state-of-the-art El Monte Station, the largest bus station west of Chicago. Metro is buying more than 500 new buses and next week the Metro Board will consider purchasing its first zero-emission buses.

“Our goal is to build a transit system that can carry us into the next century,” said Metro CEO Art Leahy. “We want a region where Dump the Pump Day is no longer necessary to inspire people to try out transit because most people are riding transit. We’re building so that our children can easily live without a car. I think we’re well on our way to doing just that.”

The first National Dump the Pump Day was organized in June, 2006 after gas reached $3 a gallon — a price considered astonishingly high. Public transit systems and other organizations across the country participate in National Dump the Pump Day to encourage the public to try out public transit — if only for a day — to help our environment and our world.