You’ve likely heard about Whatcom Smart Trips.
You know about its annual Bike to Work and School day, and that it offers discounts and prizes to those who choose walking, biking, riding the bus and ride sharing over driving solo.
But you might not know the extent to which Whatcom Smart Trips – a free program, available to everyone throughout Whatcom County – uses a variety of incentives, fun events, classes, and summer camps to help residents make relatively small changes with absolutely huge impact.
Whatcom Smart Trips encourages and helps people to walk, bike, ride the bus, and share rides instead of driving alone. And it’s making measurable differences in our community.
Since the program’s inception in July 2006, nearly 17,000 residents have made more than 3 million Smart Trips, logging those miles – over 47 million so far – into their own personal trip diaries at the Smart Trips website. That’s equivalent to 197 trips to the moon. It’s also a savings of 19,000 tons of greenhouse gases.
The idea behind the trip diaries is simple: Keep a record of the times you make a Smart Trip – a trip that you might otherwise have taken by car but instead walked, road your bike, hopped on the bus, or shared a ride.
“In the act of doing that, you discover: ‘Oh, I bet I could also walk to the pharmacy on my lunch hour,’” says Susan Horst, Smart Trips Program Manager with Whatcom Council of Governments.
Horst shares a colleague’s Smart Trips diary. “Since she started recording her trips, she has saved over $2,000 in gas money, has burned enough calories to equal 741 cupcakes, and personally kept a lot of pollution out of our atmosphere.”
When locals make Smart Trips, they save gas – and when they save gas, they have extra money in their pockets
“That’s money that’s not going to BP headquarters,” says Horst. “It gets spent at Haggen, at Mount Bakery, at Mount Baker Theater, and at Hilton Shoes.”
The goal of Smart Trips is to reach those folks who can make changes with just a little encouragement – and some nice incentives.
“After only 10 Smart Trips in a year, you get a discount card that’s good at over 100 businesses in our community,” says Horst. “And they are all the main businesses.”
After every 100 recorded trips, Smart Trips mails program participants a free gift.
Smart Trips also gives away $250 every month and $1,000 every quarter. “That’s a nice enticement for people who say, ‘These little gifts are nice, but…’” Horst trails off, smiling.
Smart Trips also partners with 182 employers to reach out to the community.
“Smart Trips helps us respond to the challenge of limited parking on campus,” says Lori Smith, Leaves Specialist with PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center. “It’s also helped us and our caregivers feel tied to the community by positively impacting the local environment. For our organization, it has been a win-win partnership.”
Sanitary Service Company Recycling Manager Rodd Pemble has also seen a positive impact from partnering with Smart Trips.
“Whatcom Smart Trips provides critical support and professional advice to Sanitary Service Company as we strive to increase the number of our employees walking, busing, cycling and carpooling to work,” says Pemble. “With Smart Trips assistance, SSC was awarded a Silver BizCycle Award from Governor Inslee for our efforts to support bicycle commuting.”
“The kinds of things we do for employer partners are fun,” says Horst, “like the fall prize campaign with lots of really cool local prizes donated by the employers and won by their employees.”
Smart Trips also partners with schools, going into 7th grade classrooms and leading them through Transportation Jeopardy, mapping, reading bus schedules, and riding bicycles safely on city streets.
Smart Trips has put that same curriculum into a summer camp.
“We love the school program because we can reach hundreds of kids and get them really good information,” says Horst. “The only drawback is we can’t take them out of the classroom. And to really learn how to ride the bus, you should ride the bus. The same is true with bicycling on city streets.”
“On the last day of camp, we put them on buses and have them do a scavenger hunt all on their own,” Horst says of the middle-school campers. “We’re teaching them how to be independent travelers.”
Smart Trips has taught its skills course to more than 22,000 public and private elementary and middle school students all across Whatcom County.
“We put the word out that we’re happy to do it,” says Horst. “And it’s free; all of our services are free.”
Smart Trips also works with seniors.
“With seniors, we’re saying, don’t stay home, don’t wait for your daughter-in-law to come take you to your hair appointment,” says Horst. “Get out there. You can ride the bus.”
For folks who are retired, a stay-at-home parent, or have an alternative work schedule, Smart Trips offers Guided Bus Trips, another fun and educational opportunity to get comfortable riding the bus. Bonus? They usually involve a stop for lunch or a treat – at Menchie’s in Bellingham, for example, or Chihuahua’s in Ferndale.
Check out Smart Trips’ calendar for upcoming Guided Bus Trips and other events.
Another popular Smart Trips program is Summer Rides, which take place every other Sunday throughout the summer.
“We pick a theme – generally food-related – and we have a sponsor, a business, that gives us a tour or a tasty treat, or talks about what they do,” Horst explains.
These are short, social rides, never more than seven miles.
“It’s a casual pace,” Horst continues. “Little kids can do this; people who haven’t ridden in forever can do this.”
Mary Anderson, everybodyBIKE Events Coordinator with Whatcom Council of Governments, leads the Summer Rides, which are fun and educational.
“Last year we did a Cows on Bikes ride, where we met in Lynden and rode out to Fresh Breeze Organic Dairy Farm,” she recounts.
The ride began with a tour and chocolate milk tasting at the bottling facility, then the group of 70 biked down the road to visit the cow farm.
“While we were standing by the cows I said, ‘Let’s thank the cows who provided us with that delicious milk,’ and a young boy standing near me got a look of horror on his face and said, ‘That’s actually really gross when you think about it.’ I couldn’t help but chuckle.”
One woman joined in on several Summer Rides last year, excited about her new bike but nervous about distances and hills.
“I’ll never forget how excited she was after biking up a hill,” says Anderson. “She was so proud of herself. A lot of people are intimidated to start riding and may think they aren’t strong enough to bike 7 miles or go up small hills. We hope to empower people to bike for some of their daily trips and show them that they’re stronger than they think they are.”
This year’s kick-off Summer Ride, on June 1, will visit downtown Bellingham’s Kombucha Town.
“But probably the most popular ride this summer will be our Chocolate Detectives ride, on July 13,” says Horst. “The group gets a clue about some place in our community, have to guess where it is, and then go and get a chocolate treat when they arrive.”
The success of Smart Trips has gotten the attention of other communities – and many are asking how they can do it, too. Horst regularly gets phone calls from cities around the country and Canada who have heard Horst speak at conferences or learned about the program online.
“I kid you not, the last phone call I got of this nature was from New York City,” Horst says with a laugh. “I talked to two guys for about an hour and I said, ‘‘You do realize that we have about 80,000 people who live here, right?’”
To learn more about Whatcom Smart Trips, register and create your own trip diary, or find an upcoming event to participate in, please visit www.whatcomsmarttrips.org.
