Case Study: City of Surrey Carpools
Building stronger partnerships with like-minded municipalities
City of Surrey Ride-Share Week registration blitz – October, 2010
The City of Surrey showed great interest in promoting Ride-Share Week, extending the reach of the campaign from staff to the community. The City of Surrey is already actively involved in outreach to help residents and employees to make more sustainable transportation choices.
Recently adopted City policies like the Sustainability Charter and the Surrey Transportation Strategic Plan show the similarity of philosophy between RSW and the City of Surrey.
An obvious supporter of ridesharing (also known as carpooling), the City had already provided staff with dedicated ride-share parking stalls for the thirty or so city employees already ridesharing. Participation in RSW inspired them to increase their efforts to encourage ridesharing. Just prior to RSW the city added five more preferential stalls and made them premium stalls by moving them close to the main entrance. The City of Surrey has also made it clear that they are prepared to provide more premium parking stalls for ride-share groups if demand increases.
The initiative of the City of Surrey combined with the organizational support of RSW created a formula to deliver a real success for both parties. Luciana Moraes, transportation planner for the City of Surrey and the RSW coordinator hosted a Ride-Share Week registration blitz in the Surrey City Hall parking lot on October 5th 2010 to encourage ride-share.com registration. Sponsored RSW prizes were awarded to new registrants as well as City staff already ridesharing during the City event. During the week, the City asked employees to sign up at their own ride-share.com sub-site to find a carpool to join. Ride-Share.com website registration increased to 84 participants. The City made participation in the sub-site a condition of using the new premium dedicated parking spaces.
“Being signed up in the website will be a requirement for anyone currently wanting to use a carpool-reserved spot at City Hall, and we hope to have all the current carpoolers signed up by Sept 24.” (Official COS communication to staff)
The impetus provided by RSW provided a streamlined way to track who was allowed to make use of the premium parking spaces, simplifying the work of City of Surrey staff. This tracking will also be used to determine the need for future ride-share stall parking at the new City Hall (scheduled for development by 2012).