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News ReleaseRelease date: October 12, 2000
King County Commute Partnership Program wins prestigious national awardKing County Executive Ron Sims today congratulated
his Metro Transit Commute Partnership Program staff in the county's Department
of Transportation for winning the prestigious Innovations in American Government
competition, an awards program of the Ford Foundation and Harvard University.
Commute Partnerships works with local employers to encourage their employees to
take the bus or car pool. "This is the 'Academy Awards' of public service
honors, and I congratulate our talented staff for not only creating this program
but presenting it successfully on a national stage," said Sims. "Our Commute Partnerships Program has tackled
one of our top regional needs – mobility – creatively and with efficient use of
public resources. The program's innovative products and services are now used
by 425 local employers, reducing drive-alone commuting by their employees by up
to 40 percent. Equally impressive is how much bang the program gets for the public
buck. Last year 600,000 dollars in county funds brought 3.4 million private dollars
to the table for commute options, and that helped reduce single-occupancy vehicle
trips and enhanced the air quality for our region." The competition selects programs that have taken
a fresh approach to a problem in government. On October 11th, in Washington, DC,
Bill Roach, Metro’s Supervisor of Market Development, was joined by Katy Taylor,
Manager of Employee Transportation Services for the Weyerhaeuser Company, to make
a five-minute presentation before a national selection committee composed of leaders
in government, public affairs educators and journalists, chaired by David Gergen,
editor of US News & World Report. At a luncheon today at the Mayflower
Hotel, Metro’s Commute Partnership program was announced as one of ten winners.
In presenting the Partnership with the award plaque, Gergen praised the team for
helping solve a problem that is faced nationwide. Afterwards, one of the judges,
David Osborne, author of Reinventing Government, told our presenters: “Your program
is so visionary and forward-thinking. You knocked my socks off.” As one of 10 winners out of 1,300 applicants nationwide,
Metro Transit's Market Development unit wins an additional $80,000 award to go
with the $20,000 it won in August as a semi-finalist, for a total grant of $100,000
from the Ford Foundation. The award is to be used to communicate the success of
Commute Partnerships nationwide to other governments to encourage replication,
and to the general public to restore public trust in government. The Innovations
program will also announce the winners in ads in this Sunday's New York Times
and next Tuesday's Washington Post. The Commute Partnership Program is a win-win-win
situation for commuters, employers, and the public sector, started in 1996. In
response to passage of the federal Clean Air Act, many metropolitan areas adopted
regulatory approaches to reducing drive-alone commuting. These efforts met with
limited success. King County Metro chose a more proactive approach to emphasize
collaboration, not regulation, and develop products and services that expand options
for commuters and that employers would willingly purchase to resolve their own
transportation problems. "I’m so proud to partner with Metro and to be with an employer who realizes what a difference we can make in a community,” Taylor said after the ceremony. "We used to be part of the problem. Nearly 95 percent of our employees used to drive alone to work. We’ve reduced that number by 25 percent, and Metro’s approach was the key. Together, we created a comprehensive FlexPass program with a cafeteria style approach to meet our needs. For Weyerhaeuser and our fellow employers, a partnership with Metro was simply a great deal. This is a wonderful feeling." Under FlexPass, an employer pays Metro
up front for a year's worth of transit trips taken by its current bus-riding
employees. In return Metro provides the employer with unlimited bus access for
every employee. Metro offers its system capacity for that year, banking
on the notion that the program will generate new users over time from whom Metro
will recoup revenue in the future. Partnership funds provide first-year incentives.
Employees' transit use grows an average of about 90 percent in the first year
of FlexPass. Besides bus passes, Commute Partnership "products"
can include guaranteed emergency rides home, vanpool fare subsidies, carpool incentives,
vouchers that encourage walking and biking, discounted parking for carpools and
vanpools, shuttle buses and services for low-income clients. Also available is
FlexCar, a new concept in car-sharing in Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. In 1999, partnerships with 425 King County employers
reduced drive-alone commuting at their work sites by 8 to 40 percent; $600,000
in county funds leveraged about $3.4 million from employers and other partners
for public transportation products and services. Participating employers include
Amazon.com, Costco headquarters in Issaquah, Nintendo in Redmond, and Weyerhaeuser
in Federal Way. Other partners include:
The Innovations in American Government competition
is administered by Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in
partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government. To learn more about the Innovations in American Government program visit: http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/innovations. To learn more about King County Metro's Commute Partnership program call Market Development at (206) 684-1621 or visit: http://transit.metrokc.gov/programs_info/employer/empcommute.html. ### |
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