Transportation Options

Boulder Transportation Connections collaborates with local governments, transit agencies, and businesses on new approaches to support transportation efficiency in Boulder. In addition, BTC works with businesses, schools, and neighborhoods to find new ways to encourage commuters to ride transit, vanpool, carpool, walk, bike, work from home, and use other commute options besides driving alone.

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Bike

There Are Lots of Reasons To Commute By Bicycle
You save money on fuel, wear and tear on your vehicle and may even reduce your insurance rates. No parking problems. It's faster than walking, often faster than driving. Plus here in Boulder we have more than 300 city miles dedicated for bikeways.
Bicycling Benefits the Environment
Automobiles are the single largest source of U.S. air pollution. An average four-mile round-trip bike commute prevents nearly 15 pounds of auto air pollution from contaminating your air. Since the bicycle season matches the ground-level ozone season, by biking instead of driving, you contribute to pollution prevention when it is most needed.
Bike commuters can also be reimbursed for certain expenses under tax-free commuter benefits, also known as qualified transportation benefits. Employers may reimburse bicycle commuters up to $20 per month tax free for each month a bicycle is used for transportation between the employee's home and place of employment. BTC can help your organization to encourage biking as a commute option, providing bicycle & pedestrian maps, promoting biking or participating in Bike to Work Day.



Transit

Riding the bus is easy and convenient in Boulder with an extensive bus system. Boulder Transportation Connections (BTC) continues to work with the Regional Transportation District (RTD) and local municipalities to ensure that residents can enjoy a network of local and regional transit services. Visit: www.BoulderEcoPass.com for learn about, sign up for and take advantage of the Eco Pass Program



Carpool/Vanpool

Carpool participants lower their commuting stress by sharing the driving, which reduces traffic congestion by eliminating over 40 million driving miles from our region's roadways annually. Save up up to $130 a month of parking expenses when you carpool. Learn more about this federal tax-free commuter benefit from your accountant. Multiple Ways to Setup Your Carpool:
•You can set up your own carpool with co-workers or people living nearby with similar destinations
•Try My Way to Go, a free online carpool database from Way to Go Partnership at Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG). My Way to Go provides a list of other interested commuters who live and work close to you. By registering you can receive matches with like-minded people to contact at your convenience
Vanpool
The many benefits of vanpooling include lower transportation costs, less wear and tear on your personal vehicles and less stress. In addition, vanpooling helps reduce traffic and riders get to sit back and relax in a comfortable van. Vanpool participants improve the region's air quality by removing over 1.5 million pounds of air pollution annually.
• GO Boulder is offering a $20 per rider per month reimbursement for current and new Way to Go and VanGo vanpool riders if you work in Boulder! Visit www.bouldervanpool.com • Vanpooling is a federal tax-free commuter benefit. With this employer provided voluntary benefit program, your commuting expenses for vanpooling, transit and work-related parking costs can be deducted from your pre-tax salary. The program allows an employee to pay for their monthly transportation expenses with pre-tax dollars - up to $130 per month.

Vanpools are a great choice for groups of commuters who live and work near each other and travel more than 15 miles to work one-way. Passengers share the ride and pay a low monthly fare. • Register to find or join a VanPool within Metro Denver and Boulder
•Start your own Vanpool with five or more people, contact MyWayToGo for more info
•If you live in the Northern Front Range, find a VanGo Route



Telework

Employers that offer telework programs benefit from:
•Increased employee productivity
•Reduce spread of illness
•Reduces carbon footprint and energy usage
•Improved employee recruitment and retention
•Improved employee moral
•Reduced overhead costs
•Decreased demands for office and parking space
Employees who telework benefit from:
•Less parking and commuting expenses
•Reduces carbon footprint and fuel usage
•Better balance of work and personal lives
•Frees up the equivalent of 15 to 25 workdays a year—time they would have otherwise spent commuting
•Less commuting stress
Communities benefit from telework with:
•Fuller employment opportunities
•Reduces traffic congestion and accidents
•Relieves the strain on transportation infrastructures
•Reduces greenhouse gases
•Saves fuel
•Reduces energy use
•Improves disaster preparedness



More options to reduce driving

There are many other options to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality. These options typically result in many other benefits to the company, the employees, or both, such as greater job satisfaction, better customer service, and cost savings. These options include:
•CarShare. CarSharing is a pay-as-you-go car usage system. It lets you choose to pay the costs of driving only when you want to drive. The Boulder-Denver metro area has a local non-profit carsharing organization called eGo CarShare

•Compressed Work Weeks. Compressed work weeks allow employees to work more hours in fewer days than the usual 8-hour per day schedule
•Flextime. Employees may be allowed some flexibility in their daily work schedules. For example, rather than all employees working 8:00 to 4:30, some might work 7:30 to 4:00, and others 9:00 to 5:30

•Job Share is a flexible work option in which two or possibly more employees share a single job.

•Reducing Work Schedules with Day-at-a-time vacation, Floating Holidays, Leaves of Absence, Paid Time Off, Part-time, Personal Days, Vacation buying/borrowing/sharing.

•SchoolPool. The Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) RideArrangers program provides schoolpool matching. Schoolpool is a free carpool matching service for parents who drive their children to and from school. More than 13,000 elementary and secondary school families in the Denver/Boulder metropolitan area are enrolled in the program.

•Staggered Shifts. This means that shifts are staggered to reduce the number of employees arriving and leaving work at one time. For example, some shifts may be 8:00 to 4:30, others 8:30 to 5:00, and others 9:00 to 5:30. This has a similar effect on traffic as flextime, but does not give individual employees as much control over their schedules.

•Walking. Boulder has miles of pedestrian-friendly routes. GO Boulder/City of Boulder Bicycle & Pedestrian Map.