More employers urge creative commuting

By Paul Queary

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — While billions of dollars in highway improvements hang on a public vote this fall, large employers around the state are finding little ways to get their workers out of the morale-draining clutches of rush-hour traffic.

Spurred by a state mandate and the knowledge that real relief is years away, large companies and public agencies encourage and subsidize commuting by bus, carpool, vanpool, bicycle or logging into the company computer system from home.

Under a 1991 law designed to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and petroleum use, employers in the state’s most populous counties who have more than 100 workers at a single site must work to reduce the number of workers who commute alone in their cars.

Last year, the mandate took 19,950 vehicles off the state’s roads on an average morning, with employers chipping in for various incentives.

"They put in roughly $35 million for one year," said Brian Lageberg, the department’stransportation demand manager.

Employer spending on the program has grown steadily, Lageberg said, even though a related tax break was wiped out two years ago by the repeal of the motor vehicle excise tax. A new tax break is tied to the passage of the statewide transportation plan on November’s ballot.

Strategies to cut down on solo commuters range from company-provided bus passes to special parking places for carpoolers to showers where bicycle commuters can freshen up for the workday. About 75 percent of the money goes to employees, Lageberg said.

At Bellingham Cold Storage, employees compete to see who can commute alone the least, with winners grabbing prizes including weekend train tickets to Vancouver, British Columbia. The company has also offered subsidies for bus passes and worked with the local transit authority to make sure bus routes dovetail with employees schedules, said Doug Thomas, the food-processing company’s president.

Several times a year, carpoolers are greeted at the gates with doughnuts, coffee and cheers.

"If we’re going to do it, we might as well do it right," Thomas said. Complying with the law helped the company deal with a limited parking area and — unexpectedly — built camaraderie among employees who got to know one another better in the carpool, Thomas said.

For employers, and for state officials trying to improve Washington’s troubled transportation system, commute-trip reduction acts as a kind of safety valve — hundreds of little strategies that ease traffic congestion — or at least its impact on individual commuters — as state and local governments move slowly and uncertainly toward big highway and mass transit improvements.

"It’s always really delightful to hear what’s going on out there," said state Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, chairwoman of the Senate Transportation Committee, who is watching anxiously as November’s vote on a massive package of transportation taxes and improvements approaches.

Even if voters approve the taxes, the benefits of big projects such as widening I-405, building a new bridge linking Seattle with its eastern suburbs and constructing a north-south freeway in Spokane will still be years away.

That leaves increasing traffic congestion and longer commutes in the here-and-now.

When the state Department of Ecology moved into its Lacey headquarters in 1993, an embarrassing number of workers were driving alone, considering the agency’s position as guardian of Washington’s clean air, said Carol Fleskes, the department’s administrative services director. Meanwhile, the daily rush to and from the building was clogging arterial streets and I-5.

"We finally realized that we’re supposed to be a leader in this area and started exploring more than the basics," Fleskes said.

The agency began paying commuters $2 for every day they don’t commute alone in their cars — $1 each way.

Several other large employers, including Safeco Corp., Weyerhaeuser, and Seattle-based Korry Electronics, offer similar subsidies.

Along with flexible scheduling that allows some employees to work from home or shorten their workweek, the subsidy helped the Ecology Department push the single-occupancy commuter rate down from 70 percent to about 60 percent, Fleskes said.

The money comes mostly from $20 monthly parking permits, she said. Carpoolers can get a double-dip, because they get the subsidy and free reserved parking spaces.

Carol Johnston, a hydrogeologist, said she hasn’t driven alone to work in more than a year, either carpooling or riding her bike the 6.5 miles.

Johnston says she’s motivated by exercise and an ongoing competition with co-worker Dan Alexanian, who rides the bus to work religiously.

"The dollar a trip is not what’s keeping me going, it’s beating Dan," Johnston said.

But alternative commutes have drawbacks.

Bike commuters can get soaked or even hit by inattentive motorists, and few people are fit enough to tackle a daily ride of any length. Vanpoolers can find themselves stuck with people who simply won’t shut up on those groggy mornings, and the bus …

"There’s occasionally a strong smell of vomit, it’s not entirely pleasant," Alexanian said.

For most people, it’s easier to hop into the car, inhale the fresh scent from the little pine tree dangling from the mirror, slide a coffee into the cup-holder, and go — especially if the daily routine includes kids.

After all, the vanpool doesn’t stop at the day care center, the bus line doesn’t usually go past the elementary school, and just try getting an 8-year-old to soccer practice on the back of a bike.

The Ecology Department and some other large employers try to offset those drawbacks by offering guaranteed rides home for carpoolers who get stranded or have to run to the school to collect a first-grader with an ear infection.

"A lot of folks struggle with doing commute trip reduction when their kids are in the active years," Fleskes said.

Copyright ©2002 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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