Alexandria’s Commuter Revolution

Congratulations to Ricardo W. from Grant Thornton who won our $500 Grand Prize!

Again, congratulations to all challenge participants and sponsors.  It was an incredible month and we truly appreciate all of the hard work you’ve done!

–The Commuter Revolution

I don’t know if everyone got a chance to see it or not but last Wednesday, tucked away on page 4 of the Washington Post Express, we ran an ad to thank all of the businesses that are participating in the Commuter Revolution!  We wanted to make sure that the rest of the DC region got to see all of the amazing work that everyone is doing.  If you didn’t see it in print, we wanted to make sure everyone got to see it here on the website… Check it out:

I just got this video from Jessica O. who works at the Community Associations Institute.  She relayed this story to us:

So, Wally and I are carpooling in to work this morning and we just happen to run into our co-worker Chris who lives in Alexandria and has chosen to bike to work for the ENTIRE month of April in support of the Commuter Revolution.  We circled back to catch him on video.  The funny part is that as we pass him and tell him he’s on video he yells out “Timesheets, timesheets, timesheets” because he is responsible for processing payroll and they are due today.  Wally is usually one of the last ones to turn his in so Chris got an early start by yelling “Timesheets, timesheets, timesheets”.  Wally and I got here first and greeted Chris with “Timesheets, timesheets, timesheets”.  We thought you might want to use this on the website.

This story was sent to me by a Commuter Revolution participant (Margaret T. from Saint Stephen and Saint Agnes School) and I couldn’t not share it with everyone. Enjoy!

I bought a Vespa scooter this winter…not the weather to do much riding, but this month has been great. I get 80 miles to the gallon….Enjoying the beautiful flower smells as I “scoot” around town. Had an unusual experience yesterday…I was scooting behind a van that decided to clean the pollen off its windows. I got a surprising shower!

Do you have a great story about your Green Commute?  Either post a comment to this story or email salkins@urbantrans.com so we can repost it!

During the Commuter Revolution, chances are you’ll be figuring out a completely new way to get to work.  While you probably drove alone in the past, now fiddling with bus maps and VRE timetables might be a bit daunting…  Luckily, there are some great tools on the web that can help you figure out your new commutes.  Here are just a few:

• Metro Trip Planner: For people looking to see what options exist on Metrobus, Metrorail or other local bus services, look no further than WMATA.com.  Metro provides a trip planning tool that lets you enter you origin/destination addresses as well as other information such as how far you’re willing to walk.  This is a great first place to check and see what options exist near your home and job.
  

  Courtesy of Flickr User wjarrettc

• NextBus: Now, it’s no secret that the bus doesn’t come on time.  When it does, we tend to call that a miracle.  For those other times, there can be long waits and questions regarding when the bus will actually arrive.  For commuters using Metrobus, a relatively new tool called NextBus can answer many of these questions.    Simply plug in what line you ride and what stop you’re waiting and and you’ll get real time information regarding how long until the bus arrives.  Each bus has a GPS receiver on it that provides these up-to-the second updates.  Say goodbye to wondering about the bus…
• Google Transit: For people looking to plan complete trips on the DASH bus, consider using Google Transit.  You may tend to think of Google Maps as only for driving, but there are also walking and transit directions available through maps.google.com.  Just enter where you’re coming from and where you’re going.  Google will create custom directions for you based on a variety of modes.  They’ve also recently added bicycling directions that find the most bike friendly routes for bike commuters to use as well.

There is a buzz sweeping the streets of Alexandria.  An exciting new program is about to dare commuters to commute without their cars for a month.  Alexandria’s Commuter Revolution is looking for ten brave employers who are willing to challenge their staff to rethink their ride and compete for great prizes.  Each week Commute Revolutionaries will commit to not driving alone and instead using bus/rail, carpooling or vanpooling, biking or walking to work or teleworking.  Depending on how many days they use their green commute they will be entered to win big prizes!  All participants will be entered to win a $500 Visa Card!

Does this sound like something that you or your company wants to participate in?  Check-out the contact us info on the sidebar to learn more about how to get started!