Mike is the type of person you might not typically think of as a sustainable commuter. He’s the President and COO of a growing company. He’s a dad. And he has a free parking spot in the back of his building.

But don’t let those details fool you. From my interview with Mike it’s clear that commuting sustainably fits perfectly into his life and has some unexpected benefits. Mike Felkey works at Intersect Digital, a small web development firm with some big clients. Intersect has worked with such companies as Subaru and Saatchi & Saatchi. The company’s headquarters is in downtown Ann Arbor (on First Street) and they also have a location in New York (who doesn’t, really). Depending on the amount of work available, Intersect employs anywhere from 17 to 60 employees. Currently, business is on the upswing.

The first clue into Mike’s interest in sustainable commuting comes when we talk about the company’s culture. Intersect is very supportive of telecommuting for its employees. Since many of the company’s employees live in places like Southfield and Novi and since many of them are working mothers, this benefit really helps cut down on a stressful commute. As far as Mike’s concerned, as long as employees get the work done, it doesn’t matter where they do it. We then chatted a bit about Daniel Pink’s new book, Drive, which describes how the businesses of the future are finding ways to motivate their employees through giving them freedom rather than imposing tons of rules. And according to Mike, this philosophy really pays off.

So what about the employees who do commute to work? Since Intersect offers the go!pass to employees, some of them happily take the bus. Other employees walk or ride their bikes. As far as Mike goes, he likes to walk, bike or take the bus to work. His commute isn’t super short either. If he chooses to walk, it can take him about 40 minutes.

So what’s Mike’s motivation for walking, biking or busing to work? He’s got a free space out back, and could probably get to work by car in less than 40 minutes. A big benefit Mike sees in leaving his car at home is that walking, biking and busing are all great for his health. He gets to build some exercise into his day, which might otherwise be a challenge to find the time for. Now that there are Zipcars downtown (a couple just a block from him office), Mike can bike, walk or bus to work even when he needs to go to a meeting out of town.

As we start to chat a little about Mike’s kids (his son goes to Tappan and his daughter goes to Burn’s Park Elementary), I find out another great benefit of Mike’s commute. Both of his kids have grown up watching Mike walk to work and now they want to walk to school. With all of the current news about childhood obesity, the example that Mike is setting for his kids is really inspiring.

When I asked Mike what he might like to see improved about transportation in our community, he lists fixing the lights so they are more in sync, improving the parking downtown, and adding more bike lanes to make cycling safer. We also talked a little but about the possibility of light rail, which is a topic he’s really interested in. Mike even said he’d contemplate giving up his car if there were light rail, especially since there are Zipcars available.

Mike’s biking, walking and busing ways are not unique among leaders in downtown Ann Arbor. Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations, frequently bikes to work. Grace Singleton, Managing Partner at Zingerman’s Deli, is also a bike commuter. Bonnie Valentine of the Whole Brain Group often takes the bus to work. Curtis Sullivan and Liz DellaRocco, owners of Vault of Midnight walk and carpool to work.

Any downtown commuter can join this great list of leaders. All you have to do is hop on a bus, grab your bike, or strap on your walking shoes. If you work downtown and would like some help figuring out which commuting option is best for you, getDowntown can help! Simply give us a call, check out our website or send us an email for personal commuting assistance.

The AATA has a couple of service alerts out because of the snow.  If you want to get these send directly to your email inbox, subscribe to MyRide.  Many AATA buses are running about 10 minutes behind.

To check on the status of your bus, you can go to AATA’s Routes and Schedules page and select a route, or you can go to the Mobile RideTrak, which works better for mobile devices.

Here are the alerts that most impact downtown Ann Arbor Commuters:

• Route 17: Due to road conditions, Route 17 cannot serve Fifth Ave from Beakes to Depot via the Blake Transit Center.
• Route 13: Due to road conditions, there is no service north of Sunset.
• Route 14: Due to road conditions, Route 14 cannot serve Overridge.

Keep in mind that all AATA buses are still running, despite the bad weather.

Some benefits for choosing to ride the bus instead of driving your car on days like this:

• If you take the bus, you don’t have to shovel your car out and deal with residential streets.
• If you take the bus, you don’t have to warm your car up.   AATA buses are heated already.
• Buses are a lot bigger than small cars, which can feel comforting on a snowy day when your car might not handle as well.
• You don’t have to stress out about driving in the snow–leave the driving to an experienced bus driver.
• You can enjoy the snow rather than cursing it.
• Rides are free on all AATA buses with your go!pass.

Just came across this great blog post about a woman who normally bikes to work but has had to drive to work for the last couple of weeks.  The woman thought that driving instead of cycling would be all positives.  But instead, she found herself wishing to get back on her bike.

Some of the tidbits from the post on the benefits of cycling to work:

according to a study in the Netherlands, employees who regularly cycle to work take on average one day less sick leave every year compared with those who do not cycle to work.

. . . regular cyclists typically enjoy a level of fitness equivalent to someone 10 years younger.

. . . cycling to work decreases the risk of dying by approximately 40%, plus all the other health benefits: the reduced risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, colon and breast cancer.

Read the Blog Post here: Two wheels good, four wheels bad.

In the race for energy efficiency between mass transit and single occupancy vehicles, who’s currently on the winning side?  The Straight Dope tackles this question in characteristically logical style.

The only thing I regret about this article is that he doesn’t look at bikes and traveling by foot as viable transportation option (although he does mention them in passing at the end of the article).

Old way: Owning a car.
New way: Sharing 20 cars.

Old way: Driving to work, hunting for parking, paying for parking, whew. . .
New way: Relaxing on the bus, free parking, whoohoo!

Try something new: become a Zipcar Ann Arbor member today.

Special new member promotion: Free Water Bottle

Become a Zipcar Ann Arbor Member between now and March 2010 and you’ll get a free Zipcar water bottle! These are large metal water bottles that will have you sipping in style. Offer only valid if you become a member of Zipcar Ann Arbor at zipcar.com/annarbor.

To get your free water bottle, become a Zipcar member at www.zipcar.com/annarbor and email us at info@getdowntown.org to let us know why you signed up.

The beginning of a New Year is a great time to say goodbye to old ways of doing things and hello to new ideas and approaches.  For many people, owning one or even two cars just doesn’t make sense anymore, especially living in such a pedestrian-friendly place as Ann Arbor.

So why not look at the advantages of a new concept—carsharing?  Carsharing allows you to have a car when you need one without having to pay the expense when you don’t.  The most popular carsharing business in the country is Zipcar.  Currently,  Zipcar has more than 20 cars in Ann Arbor, with 6 in downtown Ann Arbor and the rest on the University of Michigan campus.  In addition, Zipcar has cars in cities all over the country.

What do people use Zipcars for?  Zipcar members use cars for going shopping, attending meetings, popping over to events in other towns and much more.  One couple even used a Zipcar to drive to their honeymoon after getting married!

To use a Zipcar, you just become a member at zipcar.com/annarbor (if you are affiliated with the UM, go to zipcar.com/umich).  When you become a member, you’ll get a special credit-card sized zipcard in the mail.  Then, all you have to do is go on the Zipcar website, reserve a car when you want to use it, go to the car and tap your zipcard on the windshield.

When the doors open, hop inside, grab the keys (they are already in the car) and go about your business.  Need gas?  Every Zipcar has a gascard inside that you can use at any gas station to fill up the tank.  Hourly rates for Zipcars are as low as $8 an hour, and that includes the gas and 180 free miles!

Here are just a few reasons to become a member of Zipcar Ann Arbor

If you’re ready to try something new, visit zipcar.com/annarbor and sign up to be a Zipcar member today!

Attention Current Zipcar Members:

Help us think up more Old Way/New Way concepts.  We’ll be tweeting Old Way/New Way ideas (and putting them on our getDowntown Facebook page) throughout the month of January.   Share your ideas by tweeting, commenting on our page and posting to our blog.

What motivates you to change your habits?  Carrots or sticks?

If I gave you $1,000 would you give up fried foods forever?  If fried foods were exceedingly expensive, would less people consume them?

Interesting questions.  And the types of questions I have to deal with everyday as I try to encourage people to change their commuting behavior.

I’ve been conducting a commuting audit for a local organization.  Currently, this organization offers free parking passes for all of their employees.  As a result, all of these employees park downtown.

Given the economic times, this organization is looking at ways to cut costs, and providing $130/month for each employee for a parking space is starting to look like a lot of money.

So that’s where I come in.  I’ve been chatting with each staff member and asking them what other options might work for them.  Pretty much every staff member knows what his/her options are, from using the Park & Ride Lots to biking to work to carpooling to telecommuting.  And it’s clear to me that if this organization stopped paying for parking, many of the staff would use one of those other options rather than pay for parking themselves.

Here is a case where a stick would work to change behavior.  We saw the same thing with gas prices.   No one likes to lose something, especially when it feels like a pay-cut.  And for some staff it is just easier to park at a park and ride everyday and take the bus to work than others.  If that’s the case, should everyone get the same stick, or only some people?

At the same time, the getDowntown Program offers lots of carrots to try to get people to change their commuting behavior.  We have a huge carrot known as the go!pass, that gives employees unlimited rides on the buses, including to park and ride lots in addition to other incentives.   But those carrots only work if there isn’t also a chocolate cupcake (such as employer paid parking) on the plate.  In addition, our carrots are only as effective as the bus service, or the bike lanes.  If the buses don’t run frequently enough or the bike lanes are poorly maintained, our carrot becomes less and less appealing.

The reason I am troubled by all of this is that people see sticks as bad.  Our society sees restrictions as bad.  We are all about freedom of choice.  I think that’s why carrots are so appealing.  But my carrot will only work if there isn’t a better incentive out there.

It would be interesting to see if I could offer an incentive big enough to get people who have free parking to use the bus or bike instead.  Maybe that carrot has to come from the person themselves.

I do see this happen sometimes.  Sometimes someone is so health conscious, they’d rather bike to work than drive.  Sometimes the cost of having a car is enough of a disincentive that the go!pass can be a better carrot.  And sometimes, perhaps, people just don’t want to deal with parking downtown, even if it is free, so the other options are more appealing.

For the most part, I’ll continue to try to offer my carrots.  And when the sticks come, I only hope that after the pain wears off that there is some openness to what I have to offer.

A final blog post from Patti Smith, who attempted to use her car less this summer . . .

Well! Another summer almost at an end! At the beginning of the summer, I aimed for an almost car-free season. While I didn’t do as well as I wanted, I still did better than I thought I would.

Things I learned:

• One of the main issues with taking the bus or riding a bike is that you have plan well. For instance, we had a party in July and I rode my bike to the store to get what we needed. An hour before guests were to arrive, I noticed that I needed one more ingredient. My choices were either to not have the ingredient (which would have meant less food), ride my bike and get back to my house after guests arrived or drive my car. I drove my car and grabbed what I needed. Next time, I will be more prepared.

• One needs a lot of time when traveling by bike or bus. This is probably quite obvious, but I never really thought about it prior to my summer experiment. Fortunately for me, the #5 bus stops almost right in front of my house. Unfortunately, I have lousy timing and always seemed to just miss it. Fortunately, another one would come by soon, but it still would delay me a bit.

• Health issues can wreak havoc on one’s best intentions. For the past two years or so, I’ve been plagued by profound fatigue. I finally found a doctor who wanted to help me and I learned that I have something called sleep hypopnea. Now that I have my CPAP machine, I am not so tired. But before that, I would think about riding my bike somewhere and just feel so exhausted that it was not possible for me. This, along with lifelong asthma, sometimes thwarted my plans.

Some triumphs:

• I had many “car free” days this summer. I even had one stretch where I didn’t drive my car for three or four days. I missed driving it, but I was kind of happy to give the car a little break.
• I rode my bike more than I thought I would, including a fairly long ride out to the beer fest in Ypsilanti. I also walked a number of times, including a few walks from downtown to my house (over 3 miles—feels like 12 in the hot sun).
• I found that I kind of like the bus. It has air conditioning and is fun for people watching.

All in all, I didn’t do too badly. Next summer, I hope that my sleep issues will be resolved (or at least still under control) and I may do better. I have had a blast blogging for Get Downtown and I want to thank my friend, Nancy Shore, for giving me the opportunity. My next goal is ride my bike, at least a little, throughout the fall and winter. So if you see a brunette slipping and sliding along Packard Road, that may very well be me!

See you on the roads!!

[another post from Patti who's blogging for us this summer.  Read her other posts here and here.]

I am one of those people who will always drive to work. There are many reasons for this, namely that teacher jobs are extremely scarce (between 200-10,000 applications per position), I actually want to teach in the district I’m in and, and perhaps most importantly, I tend to burn bridges when I leave a job. If I worked where I live, then I could feasibly run into someone who I once worked with and that would be awkward, to say the least. Also, I need at least a half hour to morph from MorningPatti into TeacherPatti.

Commuting is not a dirty word, nor should it be given the vast amounts of people who drive to work. One of the reasons that I asked my pal Nancy if I could blog for her was that I wanted to encourage other folks who drive to work to just do what you can. If you can’t walk to work, you can still easily be a responsible, environmentally-minded citizen, to wit, you can:

• Use alternative transportation for errands and other after-work events. This is what I have been doing much of this summer. Hop on the bus, walk or ride your bike to the drug store or the restaurant or the pub.
• Use alternative transportation on weekends or have “car free” days. On the weekends, my husband and I usually only use one car and sometimes no cars. You also get the joy of spending time with your loved one, as you drag him to the market, the food co-op, the pet store and a million other places he rarely visits on his own.
• Plot out your errands. On my way home from work, I will often do my errands so that my car (and the exhaust it would put out) can “sleep” and get itself ready for the next day. On weekends, I will plan my errands so that I can do them in one fell swoop and I try to stay to one side of town.
• If you are someone who walks to work or doesn’t drive far, please don’t be rude or condescending. I have had dozens people from Ann Arbor express dismay, outrage or just astonishment that I “commute” (and they always say “commute” like they are saying “smelly putrid underwear” and I must give props…no one from Ypsilanti, Saline, Dexter, Chelsea or any of the Detroit suburbs has ever given me grief). Please remember that jobs are gone in an instant these days and you too might, one day, end up in a car driving for an hour or two.
• Don’t beat yourself up! Just do what you can. We didn’t get into this climate change/peak oil mess overnight and we won’t get out of overnight either. Repeat to yourself: “do what you can” and you will probably be able to do more than you think!

As the weather warms up, it’s time for construction!  MDOT has a webpage where you can search for Lane Closures by region and County.

Check it out here.