7. Policy: No Free Parking
• Parking charges all hours, all days, all staff
• Daily parking only (no monthly permits)
• Variable parking rates from $2.25 to $10.00
• No parking in the neighborhood
8. Policy: Pay Staff Not To Drive
$ 4 a day each day staff do not drive alone to work
= $ 1,000 annually
9. Amenities: The Basics
• Long-term bike parking
– Weather protected
– Secure
– Good quality racks for
wide variety of bikes
– Bike pump
– Fix-it-tools
• Showers & Locker
16. Improve External Environments
• $4 million commitment to
make biking & walking
easier in NE Seattle
Improving crossings
Trail connections
Greenway
What is Seattle Children's
Why invest in Bike Commuting
Business Value
Strategies
Policies
Amenities
Infrastructure
Performance
Intro here if needed…..I’d like to share with you today a brief overview of Seattle Children’s transportation program. I will share with you why we do what we do, what our strategic goal is, and what programing elements we develop to achieve our goal. But most importantly I’d like share with you our organizing framework for how we think about doing what we do – because this framework is relevant regardless of your organization’s size or budget.
A little background….
Seattle Children’s is an acute care children’s hospital, serving WA, AK, ID, MT. and our mission is to prevent, treat and eliminate pediatric disease
[click] We have 5000 employees and 1000 patients arriving at our hospital each day. [click] And we have 1,200 parking spots on sight. As the math suggests….we have a problem. Demand well exceeds our supply of parking.
Let me add that the hospital is located in one of Seattle’s most affluent residential neighborhood. [click] As such the neighborhood is served by only two bus routes. So historically, not an area of rich transit service.
And if scarce parking and light bus service weren’t enough……
We also have a mandate from the city to reduce the number of Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOV) coming to the neighborhood to only 30% of all commute trips by 2030
In 2004 50% of staff drove alone. Today….
Grow without growing parking
Reduce demand
Avoid $30 million cost of building 500 more parking spaces
Scarce parking
Through our MIMP process, we identified that in order to not increase traffic congestion, we would need to reduce the number of our staff driving alone to work. We pledged to reach a 30% drive alone rate by 2028. You can see our progress here.
While a transportation management plan (TMP) is required of all major institution master plans, we decided to go above and beyond that requirement by developing what we called a a Comprehensive Transportation Plan to help us meet this aggressive goal.
As an organization you have three spheres of influence through which to work. Individually each is valuable, though some spheres are easier to affect than others
Let’s start with Policy, Generally speaking and relative to the other two sphere’s of influence Are you internal policies working on your behalf? Are they aligned with your transportation goals?
For instance is your organization providing free or subsidized parking? If so, eliminating free of subsidized parking (for everyone) is the single most productive thing you can do to move the dial on drive alone commuting
Another policy – make it a policy to provide a subsidized transit pass, to subsidize carpool or van pool parking. Make it a policy or standard procedure to aggressively communicate or education new and current employees about these benefits.
Make it a policy to support bike month every year, to encourage and celebrate your internal bike teams. Schedule a bike mechanic every month at your work site, and better yet, include a discount on the bike tune up
Amenities: These are opportunities and you may or may not have direct control over them. But they are within your sphere of influence either because you own the infrastructure or you can influence your property owner or management
Charging for parking is single most influential things
Does your organization provide the quality and quantity of bike parking, lockers and showers for your staff who bike or walk to work. End of trip amenities are very important to bike commuters and walking. People who drive wouldn’t dream of arriving at their destination and have not parking. Think of bicycling that way too.
External Infrastructure: Arguably the sphere – relative to the other two, that you have the least direct influence over but there is a not you can do here……
How safe easy and convenient are the sidewalks near your location?
Are there cross walks in the right location?
Are there traffic signals in the right location?
How frequent and reliable is the bus service proximate to your location?
Do you have a protected bike lane than that connects to your worksite?
These are occasions to connect with your local Department of Transportation or transit provider and advocate for improvements.
So the first way we tipped the scales and arguably one of the most effective was a policy change around parking. We decided one of the best tools for managing scarce parking was to price it as though it was scarce.
No free parking. At Children’s parking charges apply all hours of the day and all days of the week. No monthly parking is available, in fact it is all daily rates and on top of that, we have variable pricing
Staff have access to these lots based on job classification and seniority
Staff ID badges provide them access to the lots and also records the parking event for which they would pay
Parking varies from $2.25 per day to $10 a day. The most expensive rate during is the peak part of the day 6-9
I can’t over emphasize effectiveness of reducing demand for parking by 1) charging for it 2) only providing daily parking
We actually pay our staff not to drive
We pay them 4 dollars each day they do not drive alone to work. We call it a commute bonus. And it adds up to be worth about 1,000 annually and therefore not insubstantial. It fact, it is very motivating and has significant effect on changing behavior and supporting the kind of behavior we need long term.
Now, We needed a powerful and visual way to bring all of the elements of our commute program together in one place….
Amenities are within your sphere of influence either because you own the infrastructure or you can influence your property owner or management
Choose different images
Sponsor &
Our staff visit their commute calendar each day to report the mode by which they commuted that day. This is how they trigger their $4 commute bonus. It is rich engaging user interface that norms alternative forms of commuting and engages our staff as part of the solution
The 3rd sphere of influence is improving the external environment.
It is convenient to think that your responsibility or influence ends at the external walls of your organization. It doesn’t. There are improvements you can affect and or make in the so that it is easier for you staff to arrive at work by not driving alone.
For instance Children's worked with our local transit and DOT to:
-improve the proximity and frequency of transit serving the hospital.
-We paid to improve the cross walks, signals, sidewalks and curbs within several blocks from the hospital.
We funded the creation of a greenway (for bicyclists and pedestrians0 that runs througn the neighborhood.
We paid for a protected bike lane along the hospital footage
and most recently we completed a bike and pedestrian pathway to connects the hospital with the main bike path (The Burke Gilman Trail). We included benches, a community bulletin board and a bike and pedestrian counter.
the hospital, our foundation headquarters, our autism center, and our administrative building (RC), were all located near the Burke Gilman Trail
Many more women than men
Flip these!!!
Maggie – are these numbers accurate?
How many years have we won the diamond award?
Children’s is unique because we have staff dedicated to transportation demand management
-investments lead to awards
We have a dedicated team that is dedicated to Transportation a department solely dedicated to reducing our drive alone
Children’s made this investment
We own roughly 220 bikes
Lights
Lock
Fenders
Helmet
Rack
Pledge to ride 2x/week year-round
