Terry McGlynn: Biology Professor Honored by Huell Howser and L.A. Metro for Rideshare Story

Growing up amid the car culture of the Los Angeles area, Terry McGlynn never envisioned himself as a public transportation advocate. Years later, however, the assistant professor of biology at California State University, Dominguez Hills now uses every mode of alternative transportation available in his 90-minute commute to the university from his home in Pasadena. The description of his efforts to save on fuel – and the stress of driving – recently won him a spot as a finalist in the “Tales of the Fast Lane” rideshare story contest sponsored by public television personality Huell Howser and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. McGlynn and the other finalists were honored at a breakfast on March 21 at the Autry National Center of the American West in Griffith Park.

“I burn about 350 calories in my commute,” McGlynn says of his trip to the Carson campus, which at the time he wrote his story for the contest, involved a 15-mile bike ride to the Gold Line train station in Old Town Pasadena, a short trip on the Metro Rail to downtown L.A., and from there, a ride on an express bus down the Harbor Freeway before finally transferring to a local bus that took him to the university. Since that time, his commute has become a little simpler: he take a bus from his home to the Artesia Blue Line station and the Metro Rail which drops him off a short distance from the CSU Dominguez Hills campus. He then rides his bike or catches another bus to get to campus.

During the commute, he is able to catch up on work, either reading or on his laptop. He says that many of his colleagues in the biology department take the bus to work.

“We understand the carbon exchange thing more than other people,” says McGlynn. “My research is in carbon cycling, so I think about it all day.”

McGlynn and his wife own only one car, an anomaly for a young family with a child and a busy schedule. However, he says it “works out just fine.”

“If I need to run some kind of errand, it's easy to stop in downtown or Old Town on the way home,” he says. “From door to door, it's not much more than an hour – it would probably take the same amount of time if I drove. And [the university] helps pay for my bus pass.”

Cynthia Jones-Hunter, employee transportation specialist at CSU Dominguez Hills, says there are many incentives for the campus community to incorporate alternative commuting options into their solo driving routine. Perks including priority parking, subsidized bus passes, guaranteed ridehome program, telecommuting, compressed workweek schedules, and computerized ridematching services, are available for faculty and staff as well as subsidized semester bus passes for students.

For more information on the Rideshare program at CSU Dominguez Hills, click here.

- Joanie Harmon

Photo above: Assistant professor of biology Terry McGlynn (at left) is honored by Huell Howser and L.A. Metro with other finalists in the "Tales of the Fast Lane" contest at a breakfast last month at the Autry National Center of the American West in Griffith Park

Photo by Joanie Harmon