As part of this spring’s Active Transportation Month, the Office of Sustainability and Parking and Transportation Services are bringing back an old favorite offering, the Active Transportation Challenge! The Challenge galvanizes teams of faculty, staff, and students to drop the car habit and to use alternative forms of transportation when commuting to WashU: walking, biking, carpooling, vanpooling, and taking the train or the bus are all alternatives to Single Occupancy Vehicles that will be recognized during the Challenge.
Teams and individuals will be competing over a three-week period based on the point system below.
Prizes and Recognition
The winning team will have the opportunity to receive an Office Bike! Available for shared use between office/department members, the Office Bike will offer a healthy, cost-effective alternative to personal vehicles for travel within or between WashU campuses, to meetings, or for other work-related short travel.
Teams will also be recognized for various achievements within the Challenge and be awarded trophies that they will be able to keep and display in their offices until the next Challenge! Achievements include:
- The most CO2 saved: based on mileage and carbon free transportation modes;
- The biggest shift: based on the comparison between commutes from a baseline and during the Challenge;
- The biggest team: based on the number of team members
All participants will receive an invitation to the awards ceremony lunch where all teams will be eligible for one of several prizes.
How to Participate?
STEP 1: Register
Register by filling this form. You will be asked if you want to register as a team or as an individual. If you are an individual participant, you also have the option to join an existing team.
STEP 2: Create an Account on Zimride
As a Challenge participant, the main way for you to earn points is to drop the car habit and to use alternative forms of transportation when commuting to WashU. To track progress and count points, we will be using Zimride with Citizens for Modern Transit. Zimride is a ride-share program that also gives its users the ability to track their commute on a daily basis.
At the end of the registration form, a guide is provided to help you understand Zimride and how to log your commute through the online platform.
NOTE:
- If you already have an account with Zimride, you don’t need to go through step to. You can already start using your commute calendar!
- If you register after April 9, no worries! Zimride allow you to back log your commute.
- If you have trouble creating an account with Zimride, please contact info@cmt-stl.org.
STEP 3: Challenge yourself!
If you are a car commuter, the challenge will provide encouragement to try alternative modes, and you’ll be spoiled for choices: train, bus, carpooling, biking, walking… or a combination of it all! If you are already an alternative transportation user, try going carbon free and run for the “most CO2 saved” title. We also invite you to engage with your WashU peers and colleagues to take part in the challenge: the biggest team will be recognized!
When logging your commute, we ask that you retroactively log a week’s worth of commute reflecting your typical commute outside of the challenge. We will use this as a baseline to measure progress made as part of the challenge.
Questions? Contact Clara Steyer at clarasteyer@wustl.edu.
We will also be tabling at the upcoming bike tune-ups on the Danforth campus and at the School of Medicine. We will be available to answer any questions related to the challenge!
Click here to take the ATC survey!