By Allison M. Heinrichs
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, October 3, 2007

The region’s first Alternative Transportation Festival is using the region’s first alternative scavenger hunt.

To generate buzz for Friday’s festival, which showcases modes of transportation that shun fossil fuels, its organizers today are starting a scavenger hunt that involves cell phone text messages and electronic mapping, rather than cryptic clues on slips of paper.

“The Alternative Transportation Festival is an event really designed to showcase Pittsburgh’s innovation in alternative transportation,” said Nathaniel Doyno, executive director of Steel City Biofuels. “And the scavenger hunt will make people aware of all the sites offering different types of transportation. It’s pretty cool, and you can win all sorts of fun prizes.”

The festival in Market Square, Schenley Plaza and South Side Works is the brainchild of Doyno and Scott Bricker, executive director of Bike Pittsburgh. Paid for with a grant from the Sprout Fund, it’s a way to share information about car sharing, bicycling, kayaking, biodiesel and other ways to get around while minimizing the use of fossil fuels.

“I think people are really grabbing hold of the idea of greener transportation,” Bricker said. “There’s a lot of talk about energy-efficient buildings and homes and I think there’s a lot of interest around making Pittsburgh’s air cleaner, people healthier and using less fuel.”

The scavenger hunt — prizes include bikes, FlexCar memberships, REI gift certificates, Port Authority bus passes and $2,000 in gas cards from GetGo, a sponsor that sells biodiesel — sends people to locations related to alternative transportation, such as the offices of Bike Pittsburgh or Friends of the Riverfront.

“It’s just another way to engage people and have them find out more information about the different groups involved in alternative transportation,” Bricker said.

Gumband, an information platform developed by Carnegie Mellon University spinoff DeepLocal, allows users to send short text messages to a local phone number and get useful facts, directions or messages in return. DeepLocal, based in East Liberty, is testing the technology with the scavenger hunt.

“It lets people very quickly mark and discover locations that might have hidden history, or are landmarks,” said Nathan Martin, DeepLocal co-founder and CEO.

Scavenger hunt participants will seek out specified locations where they will find a numerical code. Using cell phones, they’ll text that code to a phone number that will be given today at www.gumband.com. That will update an electronic map that will track their progress.

The winner will be whoever gets to the most sites between now and Friday, with one key twist: people who get to each site using transportation with a lower “carbon footprint,” or less fossil fuel, get extra credit.

“It’s not necessarily about who finishes it first — it’s about how you do it,” Doyno said. “Are you completing it on a bike, using a FlexCar, using the Port Authority buses? It matters.”

To join the scavenger hunt:

Text “ATF SIGNUP” to 412-726-2653 or visit online.

Allison M. Heinrichs can be reached at aheinrichs@tribweb.com or 412-380-5607.