June 1, 2005

Smart alternative route

Smart Commute Week features bikes, roller blades and BATA

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer

       Heads up, everyone, and get ready to get to work the smart way.
      June 6-10 is the 11th Annual Smart Commute Week and TART Trails is encouraging people to forgo solo car rides to work. Instead, they say think bicycles, roller blades, BATA buses or a friend's car for carpooling. Not to mention walking or running.
      Any method will do as long as it's environmentally efficient.
      "It's pretty much anything but driving alone," said Missy Luyk, a trail program specialist for TART Trails, the program's administrator. "You have the option to carpool or drive halfway and park and walk the rest of the way."
      "We're all inclusive and anything goes as long as you are making a conscious effort," she added. "It's a healthy commute, we want you to be active, and there will be less congestion in the downtown area."
      This year, Smart Commute Week will also feature a breakfast each day at different locations around town (see sidebar.) In addition, BATA Chariot rides are free on Wednesday, June 8, and carpoolers can park free all week in the Hardy parking deck downtown.
      Smart Commute Week also features a Commuter Cup Challenge, which has drawn 44 organizations each year for the past two years. Teams compete in one of four categories: mini with 2-5 employees, small with 6-24 employees, medium with 25-50 employees and large with more than 50 employees.
      Commuter Cup teams work to accumulate the highest smart commuting percentages. TART Trails is still accepting applications for the Commuter Cup Challenge; teams receive a poster and buttons for participating.
      "They need to report their scores daily," said Luyk, who also works to spice up competition during the week: "I send out email every day to let them know what the scores are."
      Colleen Goggin, a legal assistant at the environmental law firm of Olson, Bzdoc and Howard , said that her office is filled with smart commuters. In fact, the organization has won the Commuter Cup Challenge in their category every year it has been offered.
      This year, they have taken advantage of a new feature of the Commuter Cup Challenge and challenged several organizations to do battle with them during Smart Commute Week.
      "Everybody at our firm participates, you're kind of like the black sheep if you don't," Goggin said. "We have one legal assistant who carpools in from Kingsley and it is not practical for her to bike, but she carpools with another legal assistant."
      The law office, which is situated on Front Street in downtown Traverse City, has one nice feature that helps Commuter Cup participants as well as smart commuters year round: shower facilities onsite.
      "We're fortunate that when we got this building it already had one," Goggin said. "It makes it doable for me because I live a little bit more far away."
      With a little preplanning, Smart Commute Week definitely has its advantages.
      "It's nice to be outside in the morning and enjoy the fresh air," Goggin said, who either bikes or roller blades to work. "I'm fortunate because I can just jump on a bike trail and get to work."
      For Susan and Gary Ruoff, every day is smart commute day. The pair walk to town every day, year round, except when it is pouring rain or 20 degrees below zero. Their two-mile walk, morning and night, serves a double purpose: a chance to walk their French Bulldog, Frankie. When they hit downtown, Susan heads to work at Venus, which she owns. Her husband, a doctor with a practice in sports medicine, grabs his bike from her shop and rides to his office on Garfield near State Street.
      "It just kind of started out during the nicer warmer months and then Frankie needed a walk and we just got kind of addicted to it," said Susan Ruoff, who clocks 1,200 miles a year commuting via feet. "I started biking to work in 1999 when Frankie was a puppy. I had a backpack for him I would bike in with him in the backpack."
      For more information on Smart Commute Week or the Commuter Cup Challenge, contact Luyk at 941-4300 or visit the TART Trails website at www.traversetrails.org