Metro makes good business sense for local employers

Narrator Says:

Operating a business in urban areas of King County immediately presents business owners with a challenge: getting their employees to work.

With congested highways and high prices at the pump, not to mention the cost of parking, driving to work is seldom a good option for the urban worker.

That’s where King County Metro comes in.

More than 2,000 businesses participate in employer programs with Metro. The transit options for employees include vanpool and the bus.

By offering a commute benefit to reduce the cost of commuting, a company can provide savings to an employee at no or a very low cost to the company.

King County Metro Employer Transportation Representative Gayle Delanty Says:

We provide tools like pre-tax classes that are free and we’ll have 20-40 employees come to a meeting about how to deliver a pre-tax program. We do mapping for them so they can see where their employees live and what might be good vanpool clusters. we provide surveys if they want to find out from their employees directly how they’re commuting now. so we have a lot to offer and we’ll go to meetings or do private consultations or whatever they need.

Narrator Says:

Businesses like McKinstry, a mechanical contractor that operates south of Seattle.

Mari Anderson is Vice President of Human Resources at McKinstry and herself buses in from Sammamish.

She says working with metro has been a positive experience.

McKinstry VP of Human Resources Mari Anderson Says:

It actually was fantastic; we indicated what our needs were, what we thought relative to our diverse population. We have a number of different individuals going to different locations. How could we serve up an opportunity that can be used, and have all of our population engaged in this? And they had a lot of ideas and brought that to the table, and [it's] just a great resource for us.

Narrator Says:

Other employees at the company say the same thing.

McKinstry Service Coordinator Amy Cox Says:

They make it really easy, since they implemented the program, they sent out a company-wide e-mail so everybody knew. And all you had to do was show up and they have us all the information. so once we had the information we were ready to go.

Narrator Says:

Along with the large number of employers that participate naturally comes diversity.

Tom Douglas is a well-known restaurant owner in the Seattle area.

He says offering the transit options to his employees is part of his commitment to running a green business.

Seattle Restaurant Owner Tom Douglas Says:

It makes sense for us as a restaurant company to participate in this bus pass because we have 550 employees downtown. We are the epitome of small business and low wages in a lot of ways.

And this is a way to get people who may not be able to live downtown an affordable way to get downtown, no parking, subsidized bus pass. I mean it's just an awesome way for us to get employees to and from work.

Narrator Says:

Then there are employers such as REI.

King County is a partner with REI, as well as several other businesses and agencies in what’s called the ‘Green Bike Project’.

The effort, begun in august and stretching to the middle of 2009 provides bicycles to commuters who promise to reduce their own drive-alone commuting by 60 percent during that time span.

Chuck Ayers is the Executive Director of the Cascade Bicycle Club, also a participant in the project.

He says the green bikes are a sign of changing times in transportation.

Cascade Bicycle Club Executive Directory Chuck Ayers Says:

So I went and picked my wife up, at the u-dub, and after i picked her up and we were riding through, all I could hear all the way home was 'on your left', 'on your left' and the ding-ding of the bells, and I think you have these bells on your bikes. The Burke-Gilman was so crowded, it was like being on a freeway.

And I could have sat there and said 'wow, this really sucks', but I sat there and said 'times are changing, people are moving in a different way'. People are being courteous to each other, at least on the Burke-Gilman trail for the most part. Because we're all bikers, we're walkers, we're interacting with one another in a different way where we're learning about our community and we're engaged in our community.