Join us Thursday April 3rd in walking to work!
Brought to you by Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, California Walks, and Transition Berkeley.
Sponsored by the Downtown Oakland and Lake/Merritt Uptown Associations, AC Transit, the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition, Alameda CTC, and the City of Oakland.
Walk to Work Day, on Thursday April 3, is about encouraging and celebrating a healthy and enjoyable pedestrian commute! Walk and take transit this day, and encourage your employer to provide more support and benefits to alternative commuters. Find resources for starting a walking or public transit commute and creating walk-friendly workplaces, below. Jump to information for workers. Jump to information for employers.
Coffee, treats, stickers and a press conference will be in the morning of Walk to Work Day at the following times and locations:
- Downtown Berkeley, Constitution Plaza: 7:45am, Shattuck outside BART (2100 block)
- Downtown Oakland, Latham Square: 8:30am, Broadway at Telegraph Ave (1500 block)
You may also want to check out American Heart Association’s National Walking Day, on April 2, or Walk to Work Day San Francisco, April 11.
Farley’s Cafe will also be offering a 10% discount to those who Tweet or Facebook that they participated, using the hashtag #W2WD, so be sure to stop on in sometime during the day!
Does your workplace provide commuter benefits besides car parking? Ask your boss or HR representative to take advantage of tax incentives for commuter benefits, and provide a transit subsidy, a walking bonus, or bicycle parking facilities.
East Bay commuters who aren’t familiar with public transportation options: Look at AC Transit’s service maps to find out if there’s a bus that connects from your home to your work. Check out this great map of high-frequency East Bay transit service to see the most convenient bus lines. Visit Nextbus.com to find real-time arrival information for all bus lines. If you can enjoy a twenty-minute walk to a bus stop or BART station, you will have many good transit options – and forty minutes of walking a day is a very healthy activity!
Back Up Plans for Transit Commuters: The Alameda County Transportation Commission provides a Guaranteed Ride Home program to help transit commuters in case of an emergency. If you work in Alameda County and don’t drive to work, you can register for the program and be reimbursed for the occasional taxi if there is an emergency that requires you to leave work when there is no transit, carpool, vanpool or other options available. Sign up for the program here.
San Francisco commuters who live in the East Bay: Did you know that you can buy a Transbay bus pass for only $76 pre-tax dollars if your employer offers commuter checks? That comes out to almost half of a BART fare (for 20 roundtrips a week), and a fraction of car parking costs – plus it’s an all-access bus pass for 31 days! All of downtown San Francisco is a walk of less than twenty minutes from the Transbay Terminal.
As an employer interested in Walk to Work Day, you probably know that you can encourage your employees to walk and take transit by offering pre-tax commuter benefit programs like Commuter Check Direct that can be used to buy transit passes. But there are more ways to encourage this healthy, low-cost commute for your employees, and become a model pedestrians employer.
Be a Walk Friendly Workplace: Encourage your employees to take walks by hosting office lunches and outings on foot, giving out pedometers, and putting motivational posters in the workplace. Locate your business in a transit-accessible location with walkable restaurants and shops nearby. How about creating and offering a robust wellness program – it could reduce health insurance costs! Find more ideas like these at the National Heart Association’s Walk to Work Day website.
Offer a walking bonus: Just as some employers subsidize bicycle repair and equipment purchases, pedestrian commuters who don’t use transit benefits can be rewarded with yearly bonuses to somewhat equalize subsidies given to their coworkers with more expensive commutes.
Join the EasyPass: Businesses or office buildings of 100 or more employees can buy yearly bus passes at a 70% discount from AC Transit by purchasing them in bulk. Find out more information about the EasyPass program at AC Transit.org.
Find more resources for becoming a walk-friendly workplace by checking out the American Heart Association’s National Walking Day website and National Walk @ Lunch Day.