Commuting and sustainability

Why would I want to spend longer commuting than I had to, I would also include shower / changing time in that ie door to desk?  It my personal time that is being used, if work want me to spend longer getting to work that I need to that’s fine if they want to pay or incentivise me to do it. I have commuted by bike and its much nicer sat in the car

This is the problem right here.  “Why should I do anything that (in my simple view of the world) costs me any money/time/inconvenience?”

From the same chap who had similarly simple views on EVs and batteries.

Slightly less simple, then.  1. You’d shower anyway, but it would be at home.  That still costs you time but also money. 2. You’d (hopefully) do some exercise anyway, why not put that into your commute?  Could it actually be time neutral?  Mine is pretty close and I do around 40 miles a day.  3. Cars, fuel insurance, etc cost 10* more to run than a bike and are massively more destructive to the environment in every single way.  Even just economically, it makes sense.

What you’re actually saying is – “I’m too lazy and comfortable (intellectually, economically and situationally) to be bothered doing anything about this”.

What you’re actually saying is – “I’m too lazy and comfortable (intellectually, economically and situationally) to be bothered doing anything about this”.

I totally agree but this person has form in this area so unfortunately don’t think much is going to change here.

A picks up B cos it’s on the way but when it comes to B’s turn to drive, they’re not going to go 5 miles the other way to pick up A.

Or do as folk at my place did, A drives to B and then B drives A into work.

Not that hard with a tiny amount of thought.

What you could do is create a sustainability “club” .

People do one thing a week to be more sustainable and the best idea maybe gets a small reward?

Thus its more flexible and the non sporty people can feel involved , some people could lift share once a week, or take the crap out of their cars to get better mpg etc, Get out of the car earlier and walk the last mile  , use the bus, leave their kids to walk to school, the ideas are pretty endless   They can come up with their own ideas and share it.

The cyclists can ride , runner can jog in and everyone is making a difference in a small way, but the team spirit is there.

PS.  You need a catchy name for it!

“Get off your butt and make a difference Club!

We could have some suggestions here”  LOL!

rather than focussing on a prize/incentive for a weeks worth of change that will shift back to normal as soon as the week is over, do some travel planning with the staff.

Most transport consultancies should be able to help but in essence it is talking to each employee to understand why they travel how they do.  Help them work out what other options there are and encourage a change which could be one day a week by bus/cycle/train.

Maybe you can introduce an incentive to go with it.  Like £2 per cycled journey.  Needs company buy in but I’m sure you could make the case with fitness benefits and saving overheads with parking.

That’s the carrot approach.  The other would be do limit your car parking but it doesn’t sound like there is much transport links to your site.

We were thinking of having a prize for most CO2 saved or something.

That’s a pretty good idea IMO because it’s fair-ish across all staff if they can pick walk / bike / public transport / car share and make a saving (i.e. cycling 10 miles and car sharing 20 ends up about even).

Our office went to a booking system for car park spaces. There’s no practical limit on the spaces, so everyone could have one, but you have to log onto the system up to 4 weeks in advance and book it. It’s been just enough of a stick to convince quite a few people to ride in.  Because unless you were organized you were booking spaces in the overflow car park 10-15 minutes walk away.

Those who want to not use their cars already will and the rest wont be that bothered. Why would I want to spend longer commuting than I had to, I would also include shower / changing time in that ie door to desk?  It my personal time that is being used, if work want me to spend longer getting to work that I need to that’s fine if they want to pay or incentivise me to do it. I have commuted by bike and its much nicer sat in the car

Do you turn up to work by car naked and unwashed?  Otherwise it’s no difference in time, I reckon it actually saves me time showering at work as

a) I’ve had to get organized and take the big bag of ironed clothes in on Monday so there’s zero faff choosing clothes.

b) I’m not dithering with breakfast TV, the radio, and whatever else is competing for my attention around the house.  Cycling clothes on and out the door.

c) It tends to mean I eat breakfast at my desk on company time, not on the sofa watching Naga and Chris interview a dancing dog.

d) It’s riding bikes, it’s fun. Certainly more fun than sitting in a car for 40min, then getting home and sitting on a turbo trainer or going to the gym to try and offset that time spent driving.

Or do as folk at my place did, A drives to B and then B drives A into work.

Not that hard with a tiny amount of thought.

Or A just drives every day and B pays the fuel plus a bit.

Don’t bother, it’s a pointless exercise, you wont get any recognition, it will be a massive pain in the arse for you and nothing will change.

It’s very difficult to motivate people when it’s dark and wet….

If you are going to push on with this futile campaign at least do it at the start of summer not in the winter.

If you are going to push on with this futile campaign at least do it at the start of summer not in the winter.

I don’t think it’s entirely futile but the latter point is worth noting – why not do some kind of “awareness” / preparation / engagement / readiness exercise over winter and then launch in Spring having got people into the spirit of it all and having got the relevant lockers, bike storage, showers etc all sorted? And potentially managed to extract some funds or appropriate perks from management to make it worthwhile.

Very few people will ride because it’s “green”. Every active travel and employee commuting survey I’ve seen, that kind of stuff is way down the bottom. Walking, cycling, P/T needs to be one or more of: cheaper, more reliable, quicker.

Why would I want to spend longer commuting than I had to, I would also include shower / changing time in that ie door to desk?  It my personal time that is being used, if work want me to spend longer getting to work that I need to that’s fine if they want to pay or incentivise me to do it. I have commuted by bike and its much nicer sat in the car

By the time I’d sat in traffic, been diverted, found a parking place and walked in, I could have ridden to work, showered and changed. Ride was always just under an hour. The car could be anything from 30 mins to 2hrs depending on traffic, accidents, roadworks etc. Same with trains – walking to station, train delays, walking from station to work, it was invariably just as quick to ride.

The main incentive that people understand is time. Everyone knows time but very few people know how far a mile is. They might know their car commute is 3 miles but it takes them 30 mins in stop-start rush hour traffic so they assume that 3 miles is a really long way. But when you say that even at a leisure pace, 3 miles is a 20 minute ride, it starts to make sense. That’s invariably more of an incentive than the invisible “you’ve saved 1.2kg of CO2” aspect.

By the time I’d sat in traffic, been diverted, found a parking place and walked in, I could have ridden to work, showered and changed. Ride was always just under an hour. The car could be anything from 30 mins to 2hrs depending on traffic, accidents, roadworks etc. Same with trains – walking to station, train delays, walking from station to work, it was invariably just as quick to ride.

The main incentive that people understand is time. Everyone knows time but very few people know how far a mile is. They might know their car commute is 3 miles but it takes them 30 mins in stop-start rush hour traffic so they assume that 3 miles is a really long way. But when you say that even at a leisure pace, 3 miles is a 20 minute ride, it starts to make sense. That’s invariably more of an incentive than the invisible “you’ve saved 1.2kg of CO2” aspect.

+1

At an extreme my longest commute by bike has been 25miles from Reading to the outskirts of London.

Google will tell you that’s 31 miles /40min by car. It’s not, even at 4am you’ll get caught by roadworks on the M4, and at any other time it’s a dice roll between an hour and occasionally 2.

So to guarantee I’ll be in the office for enough 9am meetings that it doesn’t raise an eyebrow if I’m late I had to set off at 7:30.  Or I could set off at 7:20* by bike and get in on time every day.  Bike commuting just isn’t that slow.

Plus that was £50/week extra in my pocket from fuel.

Plus I didn’t need a gym or Zwift membership saving further time and money.

*actual time depending on whether I showered before or after, but to actually getting out of bed times it made no difference

Similar to TiNAS, I used to work in Haymarket in Edinburgh. Door to door was about twenty six miles.

The bike was the fastest option, by miles.

The car was faster until about Dalkeith, then I hit the traffic. Then I had to park at Kings Buildings and finish on foot.

There is a train station in my village, direct to Waverley. The least amount of time actually travelling, but on the way home I’d already be south of Gorebridge before the train had even left Edinburgh

And biking was just much nicer than driving, and much reliable than the train.

Everyone else thought I was mental. Anyway, new job in Selkirk, I can add an EWS stage on my return journey if I fancy.

In both cases I’ve been able to leave a very nice bike in the corridor/store room which helps a lot, I can do it on a bike I actually enjoy riding and it never gets nicked.

Doesn’t really help the OP I know. Not sure how you sell riding/walking as the ‘best’ option, rather than being all preachy about it being the ‘right thing to do’, in my case and TINAS it made sense from a practical point of view, the environmental benefits were just a bonus

Stinger across the car park exit usually does it 😉

Otherwise lunchtime competitions, challenge people to cycle the shortest distance in 30 seconds, that sort of thing, followed by a buffet.

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