Case Study of Commuter Benefits for the New Normal
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Jenny Cadigan is the Transportation Manager at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in Portland. In her Transportation Demand Management (TDM) role, Cadigan faces some big challenges. She is using benefits as a way to solve these problems.
OHSU has 7,000 parking stalls to accommodate 20,000 employees, several thousand students, contractors, volunteers, patients, and visitors. Parking is free for patients and their visitors, and the desire is to discourage employees from using those spaces. The university has an agreement with the city to limit the number of cars it can have on the road and the new parking that can be built.
In addition, the university's location, though picturesque, poses its own issues. OHSU sits at the top of the steep Marquam Hill. Some of the solutions to this problem fits neatly into plans to encourage public transportation. There is an aerial tram that takes people to the top of the hill. At the bottom of the hill, commuters find a bike valet, bike mechanic, and a streetcar.
Still, the pandemic turned transportation plans for the future upside down. While more employees are telecommuting, there are essential workers, patients, and other members of the community, who cannot be remote. Driving became more popular again because there was less traffic and fee waivers at the height of the lockdown.
Therefore, Cadigan is leading by offering innovative commuter benefits to manage parking and encourage people to give up their drives. Recently, Cadigan spoke with HR Exchange Network and outlined details of innovative commuter benefits designed to discourage driving and manage limited parking:
Bike Loaner Program
"We pay people to walk, bike, or scooter to work. We are using the Luum commute platform, and we have branded it as 'My Commute.' Anybody who logs an inbound bike, walk, or scooter trip, gets $1.50 per day added to their paycheck every two weeks. During the pandemic, we launched a bike loaner program. We have about 25 fully outfitted bikes. They're new, and they're in good condition. They're regularly serviced. We loan these out to people for free for 30 days. This is a risk-free way of trying to bike. Many say, 'Yes, I love this, I am going to go buy a new bike and become a bike commuter.' Then, we offer a subsidy to help employees purchase a new bike. We have a subsidy at traditional and ebike stores in town. We are looking to add a couple of ebikes into our loaner fleet."
Lyft Off
"This program is geared toward our shift workers, who may be coming in at odd hours during the night. Maybe they can take transit for one leg of their commute, but not the other. People, who get off at 11 o'clock at night, don't have good transit options. They had resorted to driving, or some cases waited a long time for transit. So, we launched a program where we provide a one-way subsidy on Lyft. I think it's currently $20. We've adjusted the prices because they have fluctuated. The idea is you take transit for your daytime leg of the commute, and we'll get you home on Lyft between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. That program is much more popular than we anticipated."
Wage-Based Daily Parking
"We rolled out a wage-based daily parking system at the end of last year, because we didn't want our lower-wage employees to be so negatively impacted by the cost of parking if driving is their only option. We rolled out a new system, in which the more money you make, the more you pay for parking. The less money you make, the less you pay for parking. We wanted to give everybody similar access to this resource. We realized that we might have encouraged new drivers. But from an equity standpoint and a quality of life standpoint, we felt like it was an important thing to do. Also, by making parking more expensive for some people, they may choose to park less. We want to spread out that limited resource and make it more accessible to a greater number of employees."
Subsidized Transit Passes
"We have traditionally used pricing as a mechanism to control demand. On the flip side, we offer a lot of carrots to make the other commute modes attractive, accessible options. We heavily subsidize our transit passes. I think the retail price for an annual transit pass is $1,100 or $1,200. We sell our annual pass for $50. The transit agency gives us a discount and then we further subsidize it for our employees. If you're riding transit, even only rarely, it's worth it to get that pass. Obviously, transit did take a hit during the pandemic. We went from about 30% of our employees commuting by transit to about 9%. But our telecommute went from about 1% to 22%. A lot of people are fully remote, which is great. We have many full-time teleworkers and then we have a lot that are also hybrid. It makes driving more attractive if you're only paying for parking two days a week instead of five days a week."
