Sustainable Madison Committee members met Monday to discuss plans to implement a reimbursement program for city employees who bike, walk or use other forms of noncarbon-emitting transportation.
The committee develops plans to augment Madison’s environmentally friendly policies, including its plan to reduce carbon emissions from city transit. The reimbursement program aims to reduce emissions and promote healthy lifestyles among city employees while also saving them money on parking costs.
Committee member Rajan Shukla, who presented the plan, said employees would be rewarded ten cents per mile, which should keep the city’s budget for the program under $1,000 per year.
Ideally, the committee would like to develop a successful wellness program like ones in Oregon or Washington that reward employees $30 a month for walking or biking to work.
“In the work that I do, which is behavior change based around climate change,” Shukla said, “the single most important thing to do is not just provide a financial incentive, it’s to create a social norm.”
Additional plans the committee discussed included adding more bicycle racks in the city and making showers more accessible to employees. The committee also suggested having a “Bike User Group” to incorporate social support for educating and familiarizing employees with bicycle safety.
The committee also discussed ways of encouraging the use of public transit among city employees. Statistics show only 27 percent of city workers obtain their free bus passes from Metro Transit and approximately 15 percent actually use them.
One significant issue the committee evaluated was the “five-mile barrier,” which is the idea that the likelihood of employees biking to work from beyond five miles drops significantly. Childcare and unexpected weather issues could also cause problems for commuters.
Although the committee has not finalized a solution, it is focused on implementing small changes and tracking the progress employees make to further expand the wellness program.
Committee member Arthur Ross said, “This is where we want to go and we’ll start rationing our trajectory in line with where we want to be in the future.”
