Calfee Columbus Achieves 20% Mode Shift!

By Doug Morgan - originally published at Two Wheeling

Since we adopted EcoBucks in February 2008, we've been tracking the "mode shift" among the 40+ employees who work in the Columbus office of Calfee, Halter & Griswold, a 100+ year-old, Cleveland-based law firm. "Mode shift" is the term transportation engineers use to describe the shift from automobiles to bikes, walking and mass transit for urban transportation needs.

To put things into perspective, consider these stats: Columbus, like other auto-centric U.S. cities, has a meager 1% mode shift. Portland is tops in the U.S. with 10+%. Many European cities have 20-50% mode shift. Congressman Blumauer, who heads the U.S. Congressional Transportation Committee, aspires for the entire U.S. to achieve 10% mode shift because this would eliminate the need to import ANY foreign oil.

Drum roll, please................................................since adopting EcoBucks 16 months ago, our office has achieved 15-20% mode shift every month. Last month we hit 20% for the first time. We're doing it with a combination of alternate transportation modes: cycling, walking, taking the bus and carpooling. I'm very proud of us.

Several other CBus companies have adopted EcoBucks, including Edison Welding Institute, Manley, Deas & Kochalski, and TechColumbus. I'd be interested to know whether they're experiencing significant mode shift, too.

Let me know if you're interested in EcoBucks......I'd be happy to send the materials to you. It's really easy and doesnt' cost that much ($1 per day for each day an employee uses alternate transportation to get to work............it costs us approx $1,500 per year for our office.) Even if you don't have EcoBucks, please consider using "people powered" transportation to get to work or to make those short urban automobile trips (42% of the auto trips in the U.S. are 2 miles or less and 85% are 5 miles or less). You and our environment will be healthier for it!