As a person who commutes to work via bike, and lives in a city with high amounts of air pollution derived from vehicular emissions, I appreciate and admire cities who want to make a difference and find interesting ways to get people to participate. San Francisco is one of those cities that is setting a positive example for working towards a cleaner environment.
The Bay Area Quality Management District will present its annual Great Race Clean Air Commuter Challenge, a competition to encourage Bay Area employees to try alternative ways to commute by either carpooling, vanpooling, walking or bicycling – basically anything but driving solo to work. Last year’s efforts of 1, 589 employees from 190 companies (from all nine Bay Area counties) proudly removed 435 tons of CO2.
This is how the challenge works:
Registration for employers runs July 16 through August 31 and the competition is September 1 through October 31.
Employers must register before their employees can join the Great Race. Once a company is registered, they will receive a welcome packet including a series of email messages and posters to promote the Great Race for Clean Air.
Starting September 1, employees can track their commute trips and measure CO2 savings using 511 Rideshare’s online Trip Diary.
All participating employees will be eligible for weekly prize drawings for gift cards from local merchants. Winners will be announced in November and recognized at a local Board of Supervisors meeting.
Winning company teams will be recognized for the highest CO2 savings, highest average of “clean commute days” logged per participant and highest rate of employee participants in small, medium and large employer categories.
If you are one of the many who are participating in the Great Race, I would love to hear your story and share it on my site. You can reach me by clicking on the contact button.
Good Luck to all participants!