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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

October 2008

Stanford University Gets an “A” for Commute Alternatives

Members of Stanford’s Commute Club take advantage of free, on-campus bike safety inspections.
(Photo: Noah Berger)

Ask Stanford University students or employees why they belong to the university’s Commute Club, and their exuberant answers range from the economic benefits of cash rewards, rental car credits, and savings on gas, parking fees, vehicle upkeep and the like, to discovering the pleasures of walking and biking, and helping to reduce global warming. Thanks to the university’s aggressive and successful Transportation Demand Management (TDM) program, Stanford’s drive-alone rate dropped 20 percentage points, from 72 to 52 percent, between 2002 and 2007. The program’s strong incentives and targeted marketing have proved irresistible to nearly 7,000 employees and students who belong to the Commute Club — and have earned it a 2008 Award of Merit.

The TDM program, which is managed by the Parking & Transportation Services staff, offers a plethora of alternative transportation choices. How about free service on the Marguerite shuttle that links the university with regional bus/rail services and provides more than 85,000 hours of service per year on 13 routes? How about free rides for eligible employees on Caltrain and Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), and free express bus service across the Bay for all university and hospital employees as well as students on AC Transit’s Line U, which connects to other East Bay transit systems as well as to ACE commuter rail?

If free transportation isn’t incentive enough, the Commute Club offers up to $282 a year in cash to employees and students who stop commuting in solo vehicles, cash prizes, and $50 cash rewards for referrals of university friends or coworkers who turn in their parking permits and switch to commute alternatives. As a disincentive to commuting via single-occupant vehicle, Stanford’s annual parking permit fee has more than doubled in the past six years.

To make commute alternatives even easier, Commute Club members are automatically enrolled in an Emergency Ride Home program and offered up to $96 a year in Zipcar credit plus 12 hours of free car rentals per year (Zipcar car-sharing and Enterprise Rent-A-Car are located right on campus). A bicycling haven, Stanford also provides 12,000 bike-rack spaces along with enclosed bike storage, clothes lockers and showers. Commuters can try out loaner folding bikes, and get a subsidy to buy their own.

“Stanford has offered alternative transportation services for decades,” noted Brodie Hamilton, director of Stanford’s Parking & Transportation Services. “But in 2002, our office launched an all-out expansion of the program. We added new incentives, developed targeted marketing, began personal outreach to new employees, and created the Commute Club, to name just a few of the concepts designed to get people out of their cars. Much of our success relies on the synergy of all the programs working together, from free transit passes to an emergency ride home to giveaways.”

— Marjorie Blackwell

See VIDEO: Stanford University’s Parking and Transportation Services

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