Spokane Countys commute-trip-reduction program has outperformed all others in the state, but still has fallen well short of the state-mandated programs lofty original goals, says Aurora Crooks, the program director here.


Now, those goals have been scaled back to be more attainable, Crooks says.


Spokane County is one of 10 counties in the state that are mandated under the Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) law, a component of Washington states Clean Air Act of 1991, to encourage employers to reduce traffic congestion, conserve fuel, and protect air quality.


None of those counties reached CTRs original goals, which called for reducing by 35 percent the rate of morning-commute trips made by people driving alone in a car. That goal, which counties were supposed to have met by 1999, later was later pushed back until 2005, and beginning this year, the counties will start all over with new goals and a new timetable for reaching them, Crooks says.


Spokane County, for its size, has done the best in the state, she says.


As of 2005, the county had cut the percentage of single-occupancy vehicle trips during the morning commute to 74.9 percent from 81.5 percent, for a reduction of 8.2 percent. The second-best county was Snohomish County, which reduced its percentage of drive-alone trips by 6.1 percent.


Theres still a lot of room for improvement, she says.


Within Spokane County, affected employers in Medical Lake had the lowest drive-alone commute rate of 63 percent, while Liberty Lake employers had the highest drive-alone commute rate, at 81 percent.


Beginning this year, thanks to new flexibility from the state, the county reset its goals to reduce the morning single-occupancy-vehicle commute rate by 10 percent based on 2005 levels.


All employers that fall under the rules must develop and implement CTR plans, Crooks says. Spokane County has 101 participating employers, second in the state only to King County, she says.


She says the county has sought out affected employers, although the employers are responsible for contacting the CTR coordinators in their respective jurisdictions.


Some employers, including Rings & Things, of Spokane, and the Spokane office of Coffman Engineers Inc., have fewer than 100 employees, but are voluntary participants in the program.


Pitney Bowes Inc., a large employer on Spokanes North Side, is one of the success stories in the countys CTR program, Crooks says.


Erica Markham, employee transportation coordinator at Pitney Bowes here, says 160 of the companys 450 employees, who commute at that time here, are participating in some way in the CTR plan. Markham says Pitney Bowes goal is to encourage 40 additional employees to participate in the CTR plan by 2011.


Most of those participating Pitney Bowes employees are riding buses or carpooling to work as alternatives to driving alone, she says. As an incentive, Pitney Bowes subsidizes Spokane Transit Authority bus passes for employees and provides covered parking for carpoolers.


Pitney Bowes also employs 11 teleworkers, who work from home and thus dont need to commute at all, and plans to add five more such workers, Markham says.


Markham says she devotes at least 20 hours a month to managing Pitney Bowes CTR program. Among the tasks she performs in that role is informing all of the companys new hires about the program during their employee orientations. She and employee transportation coordinators from other employers throughout the county also meet once a month to share ideas, she says. She often employs those ideas in promotions within Pitney Bowes to raise employee awareness and interest in CTR.


The countys Crooks works with CTR programs in the cities of Airway Heights, Cheney, Liberty Lake, Medical Lake, Spokane, and Spokane Valley. Although those programs are coordinated individually within those city governments, the county program ultimately is responsible for them.


CTR gives the jurisdictions authority to impose a fine of $100 a day on employers who are required to participate, but dont.


If they are not making good-faith efforts, they can be fined, Crooks says.


She says she believes only two fines have been levied statewide since CTR became lawboth in Spokane County. One was levied at the beginning of the CTR program in 1992, when a company, the name of which she declines to disclose, simply refused to develop a CTR plan.


About $6,000 later, they decided we werent kidding, Crook says.


The county ended up returning the fine with the requirement that the funds be dedicated to the companys CTR plan, she says.


Its a fairness issue, she says. We cant ask Sacred Heart Medical Center to follow the requirements and let another employer not do it.


Employers who implement a CTR plan wont be fined if they dont reach their trip-reduction goals, as long as they can show they are trying.


There never have been penalties assigned with goals, Crooks says. We know the history of each employer. They turn in reports every year, and we review them and make sure the plans are implemented.


To be in CTR compliance, an employer must appoint an emergency transportation coordinator, develop and implement a commute-trip-reduction plan, distribute information to all employees about CTR, measure the programs results, and submit an annual report to the county.


Avista Corp. is an example of a large employer that hasnt reached its goals, but appears to be trying hard, Crooks says.


Anita Swanson, Avistas employee transportation coordinator, says the Spokane-based company has implemented several incentives for commuting alternatives, and budgets $3,500 a year for its CTR plan.


Avista employs about 1,300 workers at its main campus here at 1141 E. Mission, and about 100 to 110 of them, on average, participate in the companys CTR plan.


Participation fluctuates, she says. Bicycling and walking, for instance, are seasonal alternatives.


Avista offers preferred parking for employees who carpool, as well as subsidized bus passes, a van pool, covered bike racks, showers, and lockers. Swanson says the company also allows options such as flex time, compressed work-week schedules, and telecommuting, when possible, to reduce employee commuting. In addition, Avista has an on-site cafeteria, a post office, and an ATM to reduce the need for employees to leave the companys campus to run errands.


She says Avista compiles annual CTR reports to demonstrate to the county its good-faith efforts.


Lori Barschig, longtime employee transportation coordinator at Sacred Heart Medical Center & Childrens Hospital, says management there also is supportive of the CTR program.


Weve been on board since the very beginning, Barschig says.


Sacred Heart employs nearly 3,200, people and close to 600 of them are signed up as participants in the CTR program. The hospital provides a 25 percent subsidy for five van pools, as well as discount bus passes and preferential parking for car-poolers.


Rick Bushnell, who lives in Colbert and works as a painter in Sacred Hearts maintenance department, is one of the hospitals original van-pool drivers. Although he says he had to be talked into becoming a van driver, hes since become a believer in the CTR cause.


Were keeping 10 to 12 people off the road, he says of the Colbert-Mead van alone.


The van travels 15 miles each way. Commute trips average 45 minutes each way, with four stops to pick up or drop off fellow workers. Passengers pay $22 to $26 a month, depending on the number of riders in a van.


It provides a lot of savings, says Bushnell, who otherwise would be driving a pickup truck to work, which he estimates would cost $70 to $80 a week, plus wear and tear.


The vans parking space is reserved in the hospitals east parking garage, close to a hospital entrance. Bushnell says the riders, some of whom have been in the van pool for eight to 12 years, have developed a sense of camaraderie.


We get along great, he says.


Barschig says many hospital employees are working flexible shifts, such as four 10-hour shifts or three 16-hour shifts a week, which also contributes to trip reduction. Some of those people dont even realize they are part of the program, she says.


About 35 Sacred Heart transcriptionists dont commute at all. Since space is a hot commodity, we are allowing more transcriptionists to work from their homes, Barschig says.


She says Sacred Heart offers in-house prize drawings every month for CTR-plan participants. We piggyback county promotions, she says.


Crooks says individual CTR participants can log onto the countys CTR Web site at www.mycommute.org to track their participation in CTR plans and earn chances at prize drawings, which range from $25 gift cards to a large-screen television.


Contact Mike McLean at (509) 344-1266 or via e-mail at mikem@spokanejournal.com.