Smarter Transit for All: The Many Sustainable Options for Commuting to Work

This special Bike Commuter Challenge blog post is guest written by Ms. Meagan Marie Kadlec, Senior Program Support Associate at Elevate Energy.

Riding a bicycle is invigorating. Riding the bus is economical. Riding the train can be romantic (read: Meagan meets a jazz guitarist with a Bulgarian accent on the Metra and they date). If I could walk to work every day, I would probably feel like a million bucks. These are generally not feelings induced by sitting in a car, paying for gas, or looking for parking in Downtown Chicago.

This year, Elevate Energy took a more holistic approach to the Active Trans Bike Commuter Challenge, encouraging employees to ride their bikes to work while also celebrating other healthy transportation options. After all, our office is equipped with a bike rack room that’s always waiting for new tenants (pictured at right)! Elevators Mario and Pete, pictured above and below, respectively, even spread the word about the Bike Commuter Challenge in these snazzy shots on social media.

Elevate rode 186 trips and logged 797.69 miles, which is awesome! That biking alone saved 724 pounds of carbon emissions that would have otherwise been released by driving.

But not all of our employees rode their bikes to work. We rode the Metra, El, bus, and some even walked, all of which are great options for reducing your carbon footprint, saving money, and burning some precious I-will-trade-these-in-later-for-ice-cream calories that we so desperately need in the summertime.

So while we didn’t win this year’s Bike Commuter Challenge (yes, we broke our 11-year winning streak), we are still walking the walk, both literally and figuratively.

That being said, we’re super excited that the Active Trans Bike Commuter Challenge has become such a large competition here in Chicago! It’s been a great way to encourage people to try bicycle commuting for the first time or simply get back into the swing of it after a long winter. Shout out to our friends at the Center for Neighborhood Technology for earning first place in their category!

3,636 people participated in the Bike Commuter Challenge this year. If you’d like to be one of them next year, get involved here. We also suggest that you follow the Active Transportation Alliance on Facebook and Twitter to help make biking, and other forms of healthy transportation, safe, easy, and fun.