I recently wrote a letter to the activity and health coordinator at the hospital I work at. I thought it was a good idea (a co-worker helped formulate some of the details)...but it fell flat on it's face before getting off ground level.

The idea was for a Bike to Work Week that could be held several times throughout the year. Employees could fill out a pledge card to ride their bikes to work for the entire week and then each pledge card would be used in a drawing for a small prize ($20 to Jamba Juice, movie tickets, best buy...or something to that effect). Different prizes during different ride weeks would keep things interesting perhaps motivate people to ride that otherwise wouldn't. I pointed out all the advantages of employees riding bikes to work: reduced stress, better health, less congestion in hospital parking lots, etc, etc.

While researching the idea I found out through one of the departments that 50%+ of the 1000 employees at the hospital live less than 10 miles away. I am sure there are a few dozen that live less than half of that.

The response I received was disappointing to say the least. Basically the activity and health coordinator stated that "in her experience" bike to work programs never work long term and just fizzle out after a short period of time. That's it.

I thought that a well researched idea would received more than just a simple one scentence disregard for the program. I guess my experience of working with two companies that have similar programs going strong after several years counts for nothing.

I could understand it if it was a money issue or that it had been tried before and failed miserably; but none of the those are the case. Your talking about a BOD that annually rewards themselves with bonuses that are into the six figure range.

Personally, I think this is nothing more than a case of the coordinator being yet another "Corporate Yes Men". They wont stick their neck out for anything or institute any level of change even if it's for the better. They are too busy saying "Yes" to any idea the men/women above them come up with.

Could you offer to organize a first one by yourself? You do the planning, you provide the prizes, you keep the records. Absolutely no effort or liability on the companys' part. If it goes well they might accept the idea.

Too bad you tipped your hat by giving your name. Had you requested the BTW program anonymously, you could now expose them in the local newspaper. Guilt & bad press does work sometimes.

It's sad that a health care facility can't even be healthy.

Personally I'd prefer my company to not give a flying hoot how I get to work, just that I get there. The less intrusion on my life outside the cube, the better.

The number one reason for people not biking to work is lack of secure parking. I'm lucky at the moment, as a result of a "Business Effectiveness Survey" several years ago, we scored indoor bike racks on the loading dock. We're moving to 7WTC - a LEED Gold Standard building, I might add - and we're going to have to park our bikes outside on the rear plaza. So much for security. The guys with the fancy road bikes are likely going to stop riding :-(

That said, does your hospital have decent parking? You might want to include that as part of the pitch.

Agreed. And the last thing anyone needs is a proactive coworker who forces you to do something, pressures you into something.

One reason for people like that to even EXIST. They don't have much going on in their personal lifes, if they even have that.



Now, reason why that initiative was dropped is because of liability.

One of the areas that the LEED standard uses for scoring is alternative transportation accommodations. This includes secure bicycle storage and nearby changing/shower facilities (something like 500 ft from the bike racks). It sounds like 7WTC traded in their points there and made them up somewhere else.

Aound here I'm pretty sure the number one reason is supreme laziness. The people I work with are so lazy they want to get a golf cart so they don't have to walk when they go out to the second warehouse behind our main building. It's literally 125 feet away.

yea, people in this country are too lazy to do anything that requires physical activity. And then you want them to sweat? crazy hippies

In all fairness, I've always been disappointed in the results of bike to work weeks held at places I've worked. Response is nothing short of pathetic.

I think they key is to make things seem normal and easy. The problem is that hard core bike commuters are often regarded by their coworkers as nut job iron men/women or hippies who live in an alternate world.

I do think that employers could make things much less inconvenient for bike commuters. However, even the workplaces that provide showers and secure bike storage often find these facilities severely underutilized.

Wherever I work, my coworkers seem to regard my biking in a very positive light, but they won't do it themselves. Getting past the idea that biking is somehow inconvenient seems to be too much. Traffic doesn't deter them. Expensive parking doesn't deter them. However, I think there is one thing that I think may help some day. It's called $8/gal gas.

100% CORRECT!!!! +a bajillion

Excellent idea. They should get rid of the parking lot.

Why should the company give a flying hoot about where the employees are going to park?

I like your thinking. With that simple move, they could sell/rent/repurpose what is often primo real estate and establish equal access for bike and car commuters alike. Everyone wins

bad luck - all I can suggest is compile a summary of existing bike to work schemes, get some co-operation with any local bike clubs and advocacy groups going and try pitching the whole thing to HR cubicle people again.

You'll have to trawl through some UK pages (there's a tax break for people who want to buy a bicycle through their company tax scheme) but hopefully google will help with answers.

https://www.google.com/search?num=100...cle+to+work%22

It sounds like she didn't want to do the work, frankly. You might offer to be the volunteer coordinator to get the program off the ground.

Or just do the grassroots thing without the company goodies. Hook up with bike-to-work week in your area and see if there are organized events -- in Boston there were free breakfasts and chachkis. If it's what it itakes to get people going...

Actually, from her response it sounded to me like she'd been involved with those programs in the past and no one is interested. I'd have to agree - on Bike to Work Day (5/18 or something), I noticed a near traffic jam on the local MUP. Few days later? I'd see 4 people per day on my commute.

Although to offer one counter example - BtW day was the first time I tried it, and I kept with it. So here's one convert form such programs.

Yeah, well, what do you expect? If you tell people it's "bike-to-work day" then they assume it means bike to work on that day. Tell them it's "bike-to-work week" and they will think you're asking them to bike to work that week.

If you want them to keep biking to work then why don't you just tell them to bike to work?

Well no kidding genius, unfortunately no one has the power to mandate compulsory biking to work. Why don't you tell your coworkers they're going to have to bike to work for the rest of their lives, let us know how it goes.

there's a big difference between a program, week, and quarterly/bi-monthly event.

perhaps you're being hard on yourself to say "it fell flat on it's face"! try saying, "if at first you don't succeed..."

once you've done some more research about other programs both at workplaces and in your area, also ask your co-workers for their imput. you get interest when people are interested.

the idea of a pledge card is still good, but it might not be realistic to do it several times a year. that might be something to work towards once you have developed more support amongst the staff.

it does sound like the health coordinator could either be a barrier or an ally, so you might want to approach her again and see if you can come to a meeting of the minds: you want to promote cycle-commuting... she has a job to do. perhaps there were issues that caused previous attempts to not work out long-term (so maybe you have to think short term only); it isn't a lifestyle change that happens easily, maybe everyone is waiting for a reason to be motivated, or a lack of facilities like others have mentioned.

You know what will motivate people to change their habits? Hit them in the wallet. High gas prices or long lines at the pumps is the only thing that will motivate people to change.

What I don't understand is all these lazy azzes are the same ones telling their kids/grandkids about how they walked 10 miles through the snow uphill (both ways) when they were kids.

Look at those fat MotherXers now. They couldn't walk a mile for a camel.

I think you need to introduce people to bicycle riding before you can recruit them as commuters. IFFFFF they have bikes the tires are flat, they were ridden for the first week after they left walmart and that is it.

Would rather drive than ride a POS to work?

I agree with the less intrusion aspect... but on the flip side, I once worked for a company that provided bike lockers... that was quite nice and I had no problem telling them I bike commuted. They also had great showers and lockers. (one of those top 500 companies).

Ummm... no.

That might be the number one reason for cyclists not biking to work.

The main problem with incentives like bike to work week or bike to work day or whatever it is, is that they assume that everyone who rides a bike will both a) instinctively know how to do it (including how to deal with traffic) and b) have the time of their lives in doing so. The fact is that without some kind of prior education, part a) will not happen in most cases, and therefore the prospect of part b) happening at all declines dramatically. Most people who do ride to work in these events end up having several "close calls" or other bad experiences, and end up telling everyone how terrible it all was.

Personally I think you're far better off getting together with a local cycling group and offering training/advice for people throughout your community who are thinking of riding to work, and perhaps even running a "bike buddy" system where people might be able to hook up with other people from their area to ride to work. This is likely to be far more successful because you're actually targetting people who might realistically be interested, and you can do it over a longer period of time than one week. You might just have some success that way.