BizCycle Silver Lease Crutcher Lewis gets creative with construction site bicycle facilities

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"Being in construction, our bike commuters tend to get innovative," explains Grant Howard (center), referring to the DIY bike shelters Lewis engineers regularly construct at project sites where bicycle facilities are lacking.

Lease Crutcher Lewis, a construction firm, has a strong bicycle culture spearheaded by several employees enthusiastic about bicycling. With covered and secure bike storage, changing facilities, and lockers at the main office, Lewis’s corporate support for bicycle commuting earned the firm 25 out of 50 possible BizCycle credits for Silver level certification in BizCycle’s first cohort of certified workplaces.

Unique to other BizCycle businesses, many Lease Crutcher Lewis engineers work offsite. While these temporary job sites can present a challenge to commuters, according to Grant Howard, a Project Manager for the firm, this doesn’t stop them from biking. Lewis exemplifies providing secure, functional bicycle parking can be simple if the demand is there.  Howard explains, “Being in construction, our bike commuters tend to get innovative.” No bicycle facilities at a worksite? The engineers will build them. At a recent office building project on Elliott, Lewis employees designed a bike storage shed with a heater for their wet bike clothes. As a result, half of the onsite leadership staff commuted by bike year-round for two years while on the project. Some sites can’t offer everything, but the engineers make do. “Lakeside School, a current client, has taken our bike commuters in stride, with our job office trailer including bike space and general understanding of the lack of showers,” Howard joked.

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Project Engineer Brian Grey hangs his bike from the security bars of a window at the Lakeside School site. 

With a mode split of 3 percent, most of the bicyclists to worksites are Project Engineers. The construction workers tend to commute from outside of the Seattle area, making bicycling a more difficult commute option. But Howard says, “We make sure that if people want to ride that we figure out on a site by site basis how it can work.”

Congratulations to Lease Crutcher Lewis on Silver level certification! Keep up the excellent work, and we look forward to hearing more stories of bike storage on the fly.

Is your organization getting creative to accommodate bicycle commuters? Apply for BizCycle certification and join Lease Crutcher Lewis and 19 other bike-friendly organizations leading the region in business support of bicycling.