City of Austin, GoRedmond, UCLA and Cal State LA Win 2018 Association for Commuter Transportation Awards

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Aug. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Fifteen individuals or organizations were honored on Wednesday, August 1 (https://conta.cc/2Atzdrr) by the Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT), which recognizes and honors outstanding achievements in transportation demand management (TDM). The awards were presented at ACT's annual International Conference (http://www.actconf.org/) in Anaheim, California.

Among those being recognized are four organizations that have partnered with RideAmigos on their commuter management programs.

Cal State University Los Angeles Transportation Services (http://www.calstatela.edu/parking/transportation-services) was awarded for Marketing and Outreach by a University. According to ACT, this award "recognizes a university that has implemented an educational campaign for their community that involves commuting options, current transportation projects, impacts of transportation on the environment, etc. The campaign must demonstrate a high level of creativity, generate a significant response and/or result in the rejuvenation of a previous/existing TDM program."

"We are grateful to ACT for this recognition and proud of our efforts in providing transportation alternatives to our campus community," said Carmen Gachupin, Director of Parking and Transportation Services at Cal State University, Los Angeles. "Cal State L.A. prides itself in fostering a diverse community of students, faculty, and staff. With nearly 28,000 college students and 2 high schools on a limited campus footprint, the university understands the urgency of confronting environmental problems on a global scale and hopes it can continue to mitigate its own carbon footprint by reducing vehicle emissions."

ACT also recognized organizations for having outstanding programs to advance specific commuting options as alternatives to driving alone. For each of the categories, winners must have outlined clear goals and demonstrated progress towards achieving them. RideAmigos clients won awards in three categories.

City of Austin Smart Commute Rewards (http://www.austintexas.gov/smartcommute) won the Commuting Options award for successful advocacy in Carpooling.

"ACT is a wonderful organization that brings together practitioners to share their success and lessons learned," said Tien-Tien Chan, TDM Program Manager at the City of Austin Department of Transportation. "I find it immensely valuable to see how other companies and jurisdictions are creatively tackling problems that we all face. We are honored to be selected for this award."

The City of Austin, which also received a designation as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters in 2018 (http://www.austintexas.gov/news/city-austin-receives-national-designation-one-best-workplaces-commuters-2018), has a program encourages employees to choose alternatives to driving alone to work.

"We, of course, want our end goal be to properly manage our employee parking, but until we do…we loved having the opportunity to think creatively and work with RideAmigos to create this program," said Chan.

Go Redmond (https://www.goredmond.com/), a partnership of City of Redmond, King County Metro and the Greater Redmond Transportation Management Association (GRTMA) (http://grtma.org/) , was awarded for Commuting Options - Biking. Go Redmond supports biking to work year-round, and RideAmigos proudly powered the 2018 Tour de Redmond (https://www.goredmond.com/tour-de-redmond) Summer Bicycle Commute Challenge.

"In Redmond we are very proud of our how bicycle friendly everyone is," said Sara Robinson, Program Manager at GRTMA. As someone who only started cycling again this year myself, it was easy for me to get started with the adult bicycling classes and now I can get to a lot of my meetings on one of the bikes we got from the City's grant program. All the facets of this program really help to support our riders. This year we even broke a couple of our records in Tour de Redmond with 19,117 bicycle commute trips, over a 60% increase in trips! A total of 161,389.8 commute miles. Together we circled the globe 6 ½ times, a full rotation more than last year."

UCLA Transportation (https://transportation.ucla.edu/) won the award for Commuting Options - Public Transit. Responsible for nearly 80,000 employee and student commuters according to transportation.ucla.edu, UCLA Transportation "strives to provide smart and sustainable commute options for students, staff and faculty by offering discounted public transit passes, bicycle incentive programs, vanpool programs, carpool parking discounts and more." In addition to its regular 50% transit pass subsidy, UCLA offered free transit passes to its commuters who were first time public transit users. UCLA Transportation was also a finalist in the Commuting Options - Biking category this year.

Jeff Olschwang, Bruin Commuter Services Manager, said, "We at UCLA, feel honored we can continue to offer subsidized programs in sustainable commuting options for students, staff and faculty by offering discounted public transit passes, bicycle incentive programs, vanpool programs, carpool parking discounts and more."

"At RideAmigos, we're proud to work with leaders in government, business, and education, who are making important positive impacts on mobility, sustainability, and community health and wellness," said Jeffrey Chernick, co-founder of RideAmigos. "Together our clients' programs have engaged hundreds of thousands of commuters and contributed to the reduction of more than 75,000 tons of CO2; and they are just getting started."

Overall, eleven of the twenty-nine ACT Award finalists (https://rideamigos.com/blog/rideamigos-at-act-conference-2018/) are using the RideAmigos platform to support their innovative commuter programs. These individuals, agencies and organizations include:

Marketing and Outreach – Public
Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission

Marketing and Outreach – University
California State University, Los Angeles Transportation Services

Commuting Options – Biking
Go Redmond
UCLA Transportation

Commuting Options – Carpooling
City of Austin Smart Commute Rewards
TravelWise, Region of Waterloo and Sustainable Waterloo Region

Commuting Options – Public Transit
City of Toronto – Smart Commute Etobicoke South
UCLA Transportation

Commuting Options – Vanpooling
Patty Olmsted, Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission

Outstanding TMA
Stanford Research Park Transportation Management Association

Excellence in Advocacy
Tien-Tien Chan, City of Austin Transportation Department

ACT received over 80 nominations in 15 categories for this year's annual awards. Winners were selected from among two finalists in each category.

"Each of these nominees are leading efforts within their local communities and nationally that aim to improve the quality of life of commuters, improve the livability of communities, and support economic growth," said David Straus, Executive Director of ACT. "It is a great achievement to be selected as a finalist by your peers and we applaud all of their achievements."

About ACT:

The Association for Commuter Transportation (ACT) (http://www.actweb.org/), is an international association and leading advocate for commuter transportation and transportation demand management (TDM). Through advocacy, education, and networking efforts, ACT strives to improve the lives of commuters, the livability of communities, and the economic growth of businesses.

About RideAmigos:

RideAmigos, based in Santa Monica, California provides a cloud-based commuter management and incentive platform and commuter mobile apps for regional, corporate, and campus commuter networks. RideAmigos partners with government agencies, employers, and universities to support innovative commuter and transportation demand management (TDM) programs.

SOURCE RideAmigos