Community Transit Recognizes Leaders in Smart Transportation Options

Community Transit’s Choice Connections program recognizes worksites in Snohomish County and the City of Bothell who support Washington State Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) goals. They go above and beyond to encourage their employees to use smart transportation options to driving alone.

 

Smart Commuter of the Quarter, Josefina Behymer

Congratulations to the Choice Connections award winners for 1st Quarter 2015:

Smart Commuter of the Quarter
Josefina Behymer is a liaison between internal buyers and engineers at Boeing Canyon Park Commons in Bothell. She is a vital connection to ensure that orders are accurate and streamlined. Josefina displays her commitment to smart transportation choices by taking the ferry and vanpooling for her commute of 88 miles each day. We’d like to recognize Josefina for her devotion to smart transportation choices that help keep the environment healthy for everyone!

Employee Transportation Coordinator (ETC) of the Quarter
Woody Whitaker has been the ETC for Allstate for eight years. He provides employees with support and information about their transportation options, and helps them find an attractive commute to fit their lifestyle. Woody takes the time to meet with Allstate’s new employees to explain the company’s subsidy program, as well as commute options to their Bothell worksite. Woody’s continued support of the program has resulted in 25% of the worksite’s employees logging trips in RideshareOnline.com, saving over 78,000 miles and more than $22,800 in fuel during the first quarter of 2015. 

Employer of the Quarter
Electric Mirror made a big commitment to smart transportation when it implemented a subsidy program for their carpools and vanpools. Parking was at a premium at their South Everett worksite, so they took a proactive approach to fix their overcrowded parking lots. Electric Mirror announced the rollout of a subsidy program to their employees in the month of February and began sign ups in March. As a result, 20% of their workforce is now carpooling. During the first quarter of 2015 their efforts removed 1,146 trips and more than 12,000 drive alone miles. 

Choice Connections rewards commuters for choosing smart transportation options and offers the tools and resources needed to get started. When you choose a smart commute, your efforts reduce traffic, save money and time, and help the environment. To learn more about the Choice Connections program, please visit www.community transit/ChoiceConnections.

 

Community Transit Recognizes Smart Transportation Choices

 

Did you know that over 50% of all greenhouse gas emissions in Washington come from transportation sources?

Community Transit’s Choice Connections program recognizes worksites and commuters in Snohomish County and the City of Bothell that go above and beyond to reduce pollution and congestion by promoting alternatives to driving alone.

The Choice Connections award winners for the 1st Quarter of 2014 were:

Smart Commuter of the Quarter

Mark Fagan, Smart Commuter of the Quarter

Mark Fagan from Esterline-Korry gave up his car as part of a New Year’s resolution and hasn’t looked back. He is able to commute to work via vanpool, Swift and bicycle and is enjoying the positive effects to both his health and wallet. Mark’s personal mission is to use his smart commute to reduce his carbon footprint.

Employee Transportation Coordinator of the Quarter
Jeanne Killgore of The Everett Clinic at Smokey Point has been instrumental in evaluating her worksite Commute Trip Reduction program to successfully remove drive alone trips from our roads. Thanks to her hard work she was successfully able to surpass her worksite survey requirements, which helps to gauge future areas for program growth.

Employer of the Quarter
The City of Lynnwood is dedicated to making it easier for their employees to choose smart transportation options. They offer a monthly incentive for those who choose not to drive alone to work. Their worksite show an impressive savings of over 4,700 pounds of CO2 and over 6,000 vehicle trips reduced from our local roads in the first quarter 2014.
     
Choice Connections is a new program that rewards commuters for choosing a smart alternative to driving alone, and offers the tools and resources needed to get started. When you choose a smart commute, your efforts reduce traffic, save money and time, and help the environment. To learn more about the Choice Connections program please visit Community Transit Choice Connections.

 

Bike Month: Success throughout Snohomish County

May was National Bike Month and Snohomish County had a great turn out for the month long activities. Over 1,114 bicyclists from Snohomish County participated in the Commute Challenge during the month of May. In Snohomish County alone, there were an impressive 818 participants in Bike to Work Day commute station celebrations. Thank you for everyone who geared up to join in the Bike Month festivities including our commute station sponsors: Starbucks and Talking Rain! For more information on biking in your community, additional resources are available at Community Transit bikes and Cascade Bicycle Club.

Bike Month Spotlight: Seattle Genetics We are excited to share the success of one of our local employers, Seattle Genetics, who just wrapped up their most successful Bike to Work campaign in 2014. Their Bike Month events at their Bothell worksite include a Bike Month Challenge team that raised funds for a local non-profit agency. Kelly Davis, Employee Transportation Coordinator for Seattle Genetics, shares their impressive story: In May 2014, employees at Seattle Genetics, the largest Washington-based biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative, empowered antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer, beat the company’s previous Bike to Work month records by a wide margin. Fifty-four employees biked 6,000 miles in 576 one way trips during the month of May. Participation and miles biked increased 45 percent on average over previous years. In fact, several new participants mentioned how they started biking to work because of Seattle Genetics’ Bike to Work program and several plan to continue to bike to work through the summer. Seattle Genetics boosted 2014 participation through different incentives. The biggest incentive came through the company matching $1 for every mile biked, resulting in $6,000 donated to Gilda's Club Seattle, a non-profit organization providing a support network for those living with cancer - survivors, their loved-ones and friends. Seattle Genetics also provided company branded bike wind vests, onsite bike tune-ups for Bike to Work day participants and gave out $20 gift certificates from a local bike shop to two lucky winners each week. Every year it is a pleasure to see Bike to Work month participation increase at Seattle Genetics, with this year proving just as spectacular.

Oxy Gene: Two local schools STEP up for Community Transit Coloring Contest

Hello Good People!

Oxy Gene here, defender of truth, justice, and really clean air! I hope you’re all having a fabulous spring, and guess what…..summer is just about here(my favorite time of year to fly the gorgeous skies of Puget Sound!).  I’ve had a terrific year travelling across Snohomish County sharing information about Community Transit.

As you know, my good friend Steve Peters, runs a very entertaining School Transit Education Program (STEP), where he travels to schools within Snohomish County telling kids how much fun it is to ride their local transit system.  The program talks about safety, how to read a route number and how important Community Transit is for reducing traffic snarls in the community. Steve visits nearly 10,000 kids per year!



In fact, just recently I helped Steve choose two schools to participate in a poster coloring contest, Quil Ceda/Tulalip Elementary in Marysville and St. Mary Magdalen in Everett.  First and third graders were given blank sheets of paper and asked to show their creativity.  Using as many colors as possible and including a Community Transit bus, the kids used their imaginations to show how they can help yours truly be their own clean air superhero.



Quil Ceda/Tulalip Elementary First Grade Winners



St. Mary Magdalen First Grade Winners

St. Mary Magdalen Third Grade Winners

The pictures were amazing! Many kids also showed where they’d like to travel on a bus. Winners from each grade level were chosen and each school held an ice cream party this week to award the winners. Even superheroes can’t pass up ice cream! Their drawings will be posted on the interiors of our buses for all to see. An awesome job by all!!



Once the school year is done, well that’s where I give Steve a break and I, Oxy Gene.., “Clean Air Defender”, take to the skies and do my part to pulverize pollution.  You’ll see me in parades, at fairs, and other public events throughout the summer.

Remember…there’s only one thing that all of us share; it nourishes, refreshes, please love it…..IT’S AIR!

Smart Commuters Walk the "Green" Carpet

By Caryn Walline, TDM & Outreach Specialist

At Community Transit, we work hard to operate by the motto “Earth Day, Every Day.”

Recently, the agency celebrated Snohomish County and Bothell businesses and commuters that walk the talk (sometimes literally!) at our 2012 Smart Commuter Awards Luncheon. The ceremony honored individuals and companies that reduced greenhouse gas emissions and congestion by using greener alternatives to driving alone such as riding transit, vanpooling, carpooling, biking and walking.

This year’s honorees prove that choosing sustainable transportation options not only helps individuals save money and stress, but also makes our community a better place to live and work for everyone.

Employer of the Year – Crane Aerospace & Electronics 
By promoting the Curb the Congestion program, Crane Aerospace was able to encourage their employees to remove 2,117 trips on 164th Street in 2012.

Employee Transportation Coordinator of the Year – David Kemp, Brooks Sports 
In 2012, David Kemp launched the Commute Happy campaign at Brooks Sports in Bothell to motivate his employees to try greener travel options. During the Commute Happy campaign, Brooks’ employees reduced more than 35,000 lbs. of CO-2 and logged more than 3,800 trips using green commute options.

Smart Commuter of the Year – Astrella Norell, Brooks Sports 
Astrella commutes to her job as an Apparel & Product Developer at Brooks Sports by bus most days. She also decided four years ago to live without a car and uses the money she saves on gas, insurance and car loans to travel.

Caryn accepted the Employer of the Year
award from Bob Drewel at the
2011 Smart Commuter Awards when she was
an ETC. Now Caryn facilitates ETC activity
for Community Transit.

The 2012 award recipients were all from businesses throughout Snohomish County and Bothell who support Washington State’s Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) goals. Community Transit receives funding from the state to help these employers reduce single-occupant vehicle trips to their worksites by providing services such as the Smart Commuter Awards, advanced training for Employee Transportation Coordinators (ETCs), a Guaranteed Ride Home program, transportation fairs, and resources on commute alternatives to approximately 24,000 employees at 74 worksites.

As a former ETC at Puget Sound Energy – Bothell, the winner of the 2011 Employer of the Year Smart Commuter Award, I have personally seen the positive affects that the Commute Trip Reduction program has on businesses and employees.

The benefits to the company were being able to provide a desirable benefit to our employees that helped with recruiting and retention, while also meeting Puget Sound Energy’s mission to protect the environment. Employees participating in the Puget Sound Energy CTR program were able to save money on gas, were less stressed and enjoyed living healthier, greener lives.

Commute Trip Reduction can also have major impacts on air quality and congestion throughout our communities. Across the state of Washington, participants in the CTR program reduce more than 71,500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year and save commuters more than $22 million in fuel.

Here in Snohomish County, businesses in six out of nine jurisdictions that receive Community Transit’s CTR services reduced drive-alone trips since 2007, resulting in a savings of almost 28 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per employee each day.

Earth Day: Environmental Management Part of Our Business

By Colleen Murphy, Environmental Analyst 

“Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” 

This proverb has been attributed to Native American tribes, Kenyan natives and even Ralph Waldo Emerson. Regardless of the source, it’s an honorable view about each generation leaving the Earth better than we found it.

Community Transit has nine Core Values that characterize the way we conduct business. Our commitment to the environment is demonstrated in our Core Value of Environmental Stewardship: “We embrace ways of doing business that are environmentally friendly, and seek to be a role model for other organizations in reducing environmental impacts.”

To implement this Core Value, Community Transit operates an active Environmental Management System (EMS). An EMS is a process of continually improving our environmental performance by using the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Our EMS began in 2004 and is compliant with ISO 14001-2004. Our EMS is a tool we use to go above and beyond environmental regulations.

A multi-departmental team evaluates all of our activities to identify opportunities to reduce waste, reduce natural resources used and switch to “greener” options. We then create an action plan to implement the identified improvements and train affected employees. Using this process we have improved air quality by reducing vehicle emissions, reduced fuel waste, reduced electricity usage, increased recycling of office and work products, installed solar panels at the Mountlake Terrace Parking Garage, increased emergency response preparedness and made many more improvements to our everyday operations.

These efforts make a positive impact on our local environment every day and help to lower our operating costs, which preserves bus service. On Earth Day 2013, Community Transit is doing its part daily to utilize natural resources wisely, improve the local waterways for our children to play in, and help keep the air cleaner in our part of the world. After all, we live here too!

Electric Vehicles Can Charge Up at Mountlake Terrace Transit Center

Last Saturday, May 5, Community Transit and the City of Mountlake Terrace held an event at the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center to unveil 10 new electric vehicle charging stations. The charging stations were installed by the city thanks to a federal stimulus grant to help complete a goal of creating a network of charging stations along the I-5 corridor. U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen was there to help commemorate the event.

The 10 stations can charge up to 20 electric vehicles at a time. The city charges a fee for the electricity, now 85 cents an hour. At the event, several electric cars were there to get charged up, including a red Tesla roadster electric sports car.

The event was also used to announce that the transit center has received a Green Globes “One Globes” certification by the Green Building Initiative (GBI). This is similar to LEED certification for buildings. It means the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center was built with sustainable principles that create a low impact on the environment, reduce energy consumption and reduce overall maintenance costs.

The transit center was built with concrete using recycled materials, includes a daylighted stream as part of its stormwater runoff filtration system, has 30 solar panels that feed into the regional power grid and uses low-energy lighting in the parking garage.

The transit center earned a One Globes certification out of a possible four globes. The Mountlake Terrace Transit Center is believed to be one of the first non-occupied buildings in the world to be recognized for sustainable construction.

High Fuel Prices Cost Transit, Too

By Dave Richards, Community Transit Director of Maintenance

High gas prices are causing individuals to cut back on their driving to save money.
How do fuel costs affect transit budgets?

For every one cent rise in diesel prices, we have an increase in operating costs of more than $31,000 per year. That is just for our fixed route buses. Fuel costs for our automobiles, DART paratransit service and vanpools increase as well.

Fuel, whether it is diesel or gasoline, is an expensive and necessary commodity in the public transportation business. We can’t just suddenly stop serving the customers who rely on us to do the driving for them. That doesn’t mean we can’t take actions to reduce the effects that fuel costs and fuel usage have on our ability to operate efficiently.

County Gets Grant for Transit

Snohomish County employees are getting a free ride on transit thanks to a federal grant that supports Commute Trip Reduction efforts.

Snohomish County’s Sustainability Initiative got a $4.8 million Department of Energy block grant funded by the federal Recovery Act. The money goes to 12 different energy efficiency projects.

One of those projects offers free ORCA cards to all county employees in 2011. The ORCA regional fare card can be used by employees to get to work via Everett Transit, Community Transit or Sound Transit. The county’s usual Commute Trip Reduction program has covered part of the cost of a monthly transit pass, but these ORCA cards offer unlimited rides at no additional cost to the employee.

The County Campus is one of the places in the county with excellent public transportation: the frequent service of Swift and the transit hub of Everett Station are right nearby. Here’s hoping county workers will use their ORCA cards to give transit a try.

Earth Day, every day

This Thursday, April 22, marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day originated on the same date in 1970, when 20 million Americans took to their community streets, parks and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment.

Did you know that taking public transit instead of your own vehicle is one of the simplest ways to reduce your carbon footprint? Each year, public transportation use in the United States saves 1.4 billion gallons of gasoline. And the average public transit rider consumes only half as much oil as an automobile rider uses. If you're curious how large of a footprint your lifestyle leaves, try out the Earth Day Network's Footprint Calculator.

Although Earth Day comes every year, Community Transit works hard to operate like it's Earth Day, every day. Aside from helping you live green, the agency has been active in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for many years. In 2002, we were the first transit agency in the state of Washington to introduce a Clean Diesel program, switching our fleet of buses to ultra-low-sulfur diesel. We installed special particulate traps that lessen tailpipe emissions - buses without these traps produce about one pound of pollution every 52 miles, while our buses must travel more than 500 miles to produce that same amount. We even recycle our bus wash water, which saves almost 13 million gallons of fresh water each year.

From installing solar panels at the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center to generate 5,500 kWh per year - pumping energy back into the local power grid and offsetting 7,700 pounds of carbon dioxide annually, to choosing hybrid vehicles for Swift, our highest-mileage and highest-ridership bus route, we take our core value of environmental stewardship to heart.

But buses aren't the only way to travel greener - Community Transit actively promotes other SOV alternatives. We operate one of the largest vanpool fleets in the nation, as well as connect people to ride sharing services, and we work with about 75 Snohomish county-based employers to help them meet our state's Commute Trip Reduction law. And right now we're gearing up for the annual Snohomish county Bike to Work events, including the Bike to Work Challenge and National Bike to Work Day (learn more at the kickoff event on April 29).

In 2009, Americans took more than 10 billion trips on public transportation. This Earth Day, we thank our riders for helping Community Transit provide 11.3 million of those trips.