Ample parking with valet service, rewards for riding, and a scenic trip on the Tram are just some of the motivations for OHSU staff to ride.
(Photo: J. Maus/BikePortland)
Oregon Health and Science University is touting a major new milestone this week: staff and students at Oregon’s largest employer have logged their millionth workday of biking to campus (they measuire trips (one-way or round-trip) as one “day” of biking).
Of those million rides, over 650,000 of them were to the Marquam Hill campus, 244,000 were to South Waterfront, and nearly 50,000 were to downtown.
And while OHSU’s stellar cycling record has innumerable benefits to the growing institution itself, riders also reap rewards in the form of cash payments. Transportation Options Coordinator John Landolfe say he’s paid out over $1 million to riders since the bike program began in 2010. The promise is simple: 20 rides earns $20 — the only requirements are that you log into the network and your ride is at least two miles round-trip to any OHSU location.
Since Landolfe started tracking trips, over 6,700 people have participated in the program. In the past seven years the rate of OHSU staff who bike to the Marquam Hill campus was 8 percent. That number is now close to 20 percent of the total workforce. The average bike trip is nine miles per day.
The lynchpin of this success is the Portland Aerial Tram, which makes the climb up to “Pill Hill” avoidable. As we shared last year, of all the OHSU Marquam Hill employees who take the tram, nearly one-in-four get to it by bike. At the base of the tram about 500 people park their bikes each day, with well over 300 of them using the Go By Bike bike valet on an average day.
While Landolfe celebrates his bike program, he also knows it’s time for an update. They’ve been using the same underlying trip-counting technology since 2010 and — while it was state-of-the-art back then — new technology could vastly improve the system. “We’ve been working behind the scenes,” Landolfe says, “and we’re excited to unveil something new in 2018.”
Landolfe is probably much less excited about two looming closures of the tram. One starts tomorrow (2/14) and lasts five days. And another closure begins June 23rd and is slated to last 38 days.
Hopefully the riding habit for these OHSU workers is strong enough that they’ll keep riding despite that hassle.
For more on OHSU’s bike program, check out www.ohsu.edu/bike.
— Jonathan Maus: (503) 706-8804, @jonathan_maus on Twitter and jonathan@bikeportland.org
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