Gold level Seattle Children’s leads BizCycle workplaces

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Congratulations to Seattle Children’s Hospital, BizCycle’s highest scoring certified workplace. Seattle Children’s was awarded Gold level certification, earning 43 out of 50 possible credits—just two credits shy of platinum certification.

While focused on saving kids’ lives, Seattle Children’s has to get 5,900 employees to work every week to do so.  Promoting physically active travel through biking and walking furthers Children’s mission of improving health, and makes solid business sense as bicycling requires pennies on the dollar to support relative to other forms of transportation.

Currently, Children’s boasts just over a five percent bicycle mode split, meaning about three hundred employees bicycle to work on a given day. The organization set a three-year goal to increase bicycling to 7.5 percent of employees (four hundred and sixty-six people). With bicycling increasing steadily by 0.3 percent each year among commuters to the hospital, part of Children’s success in getting employees on bikes comes out of the hospital’s Company Bike Program. Employees who pledge to bicycle to work at least two days per week receive a company-issued bike outfitted for commuting with lights, fenders and a rack. The program includes training classes and bicycle maintenance.

Alternative commuters (including bicyclists) receive a daily commute bonus of $3.25, which is partially subsidized by parking revenue from employees who drive alone.

Children’s efforts to promote bicycling extend well beyond the hospital campus. Children’s has repeatedly identified, planned and funded innovative projects that connect their facility to the nearby bicycle infrastructure.  Recent projects include,

1. The 39^th Ave Neighborhood Greenway
2. A new connection between the Burke-Gilman Trail and Sandpoint Way NE at 40th Ave NE
3. A two-way protected bikeway separated from traffic along Sandpoint Way NE between the hospital entrances on Penny Drive and 40^th Ave NE
4. A bicycle climbing lane on the hill up to the main hospital entrance

These critical "last-mile" connections aim to provide bicycle commuters a Burke-Gilman-like experience right up to the front door of the workplace.

The bar has been set for excellence in bike-friendly best practices and it seems Seattle Children’s is the organization to beat. How does your company measure up? Apply for BizCycle certification and join twenty other workplaces leading the region in bicycling. Visit  bizcycle.cascade.org or email bizcycle@cascadebicycleclub.org for more information.