Paid for not taking the car to work
Region's best job sites for commuters listed
Even on Seattle's drizzliest, chilliest mornings, Daniel Hirschstein leaves his new sports car in the garage and pedals through train yards and past petroleum tanks down a narrow industrial path to his lab at Amgen Inc.
"I think that there's too many cars on the road as it is," said the 47-year-old research scientist. "I just came back from L.A., and believe me, I'd hate to see our city turn into something like that, traffic-wise."
His company agrees. That's why every time Hirschstein swings his leg over the bicycle saddle, the biotechnology firm pays him to do it.
Amgen, along with 248 other Puget Sound-area employers, was named a best workplace for commuters today by a coalition led by the Environmental Protection Agency, local non-profits and transit organizations.
The coalition wants benefits such as bus passes and free ferry rides to become as common as health insurance and 401(k) accounts.
Three-quarters of Seattle-area commuters, or 1.13 million people, drove to work alone last year, according to the Census Bureau. If Seattle's population grows as predicted, more than 25,000 extra parking spaces will be needed downtown in the next quarter century, said Steve Gerritson, executive director of Commuter Challenge, a Seattle-based non-profit and coalition member.
"That just isn't going to happen. We don't have the space," he said. "We really have to make some effort here to get people out of their cars."
Amgen spends slightly more than $1 million per year encouraging the 800 employees at its Interbay campus and 200 in Bothell to bike, car pool, take the bus or share a van. That averages $1,000 per employee. The company provides a smorgasbord of free commuter goodies: showers and lockers, onsite bike tune-ups, two bike shelters, ferry and bus rides, emergency cab rides, Flexcars for trips to the dentist and meetings, and a shuttle every 15 minutes to downtown.
The company gives $50 gift certificates monthly to everyone who bikes, walks or is dropped off. They are redeemable at various stores, including outdoor gear retailer REI. Car poolers get $25 gift certificates. "People love that REI one," said Amgen spokeswoman Carol Pawlak. "Seattle certainly has a traffic problem and this is a way around it."
Meanwhile, employees who drive pay $65 a month to park. As a result, two-thirds arrive at work via some method other than driving alone, and 10 percent ride bikes, says Jan Law, who works full time as Amgen's employee transportation coordinator.
Fewer than 1 percent of corporations nationwide qualify as a best workplace for commuters, according to the EPA, which has previously ranked Fortune 500 companies but today recognized Puget Sound employers specifically for the first time.
Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks and the cities of Issaquah, Redmond, Renton and Tukwila made the list. Seattle did not.
"If you just want to look at our core downtown businesses, we would be on it," said Gregg Hirakawa, spokesman for Seattle's Department of Transportation. But many people who work in the city's outlying field offices keep irregular hours and must drive, he said.
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Paid for not taking the car to work
