The bike/pedestrian coordinators from LinkedIn and Facebook stopped by the first day of the Association for Commuter Transportation conference in San Francisco to offer tips on how their businesses work to ease traffic.
“One of best things you can do is to get a couple of community bikes. People will try them and realize that riding a bike is fun,” said Michael Alba, who runs LinkedIn’s employee-transportation programs around the world. From that start, he said a company could begin to provide somewhat nicer bikes that employees can ride and even take home if needed. Then all the benefits of having a healthier and happier workforce will take shape.
Jessica Herrera, transportation program manager at Facebook, agreed. “Really, it’s about building a culture,” she said, adding that starting a focus on a bikable and walkable campus at its Menlo Park headquarters became a popular initiative fairly quickly. “It’s grown and grown. People want to have more fun and be outside, and we want to make it safe and comfortable.”
The bike infrastructure at Facebook used to be very spread out and not conducive to easy hop-on, hop-off rides across campus. The improvements have included:
- Company bikes to ride around campus.
- Racks outside every building.
- Showers and towel service in every building.
- Five bike mechanics who work on employees’ bikes and campus bikes.
- Bicycle-accessory vending machines for after work hours when mechanics aren’t there.
- The introduction of classes.
- Monthly bike-to-work-day rides, which typically have participation in the hundreds.
- Four-hundred and fifty bikes for interns, who are required to complete a bicycle safety class.
“We thought it would be tough to find safe routes in the San Francisco area. But you know what: it’s easier than you think,” Herrera said.
At LinkedIn, Alba really focuses on what he calls “the first and last 100,” which are the start and the end of all work commutes and are almost always going to be a walk.
“When walking and biking become convenient, then it becomes the preferred choice.”
For walking, he said escalators at shopping centers are often great models because they help people flow really well through spaces. Alba noted that stairs are underutilized and often appear to be scary places.
“Not all buildings have escalators, but they all have stairs. Up to the first three stories, I’ll beat you on the elevator every time. We need to make stairs inviting and really bright, with way-finding systems and signage, and make them attractive.”
For biking, Alba recommends putting parking near entrances so that there is no diversion involved when the bicyclist hops from the bike to the stairs to the workspace. At LinkedIn, after “a secure showcase of bike parking” was constructed in the lobby and bicycling was made to seem more convenient, the percentage of employees bicycling to work increased from 1 percent to 6 percent.