View the Agenda: 2019 NATIONAL BIKE SUMMIT

Campus employers have an important role in attracting and retaining great talent. Creating systems to help onboard, inform, and support employees is critical to continued success. At Colorado State University we are formalizing our support mechanisms to welcome new employees, provide housing and transportation assistance, deliver engaging group trainings, create consistent commuter amenities, and celebrate new mode choices.

Our employee onboarding process is a partnership with Human Resources and Parking and Transportation Services to acquire new employee contact information, reach out to welcome individuals, and provide a complete transportation and housing picture for an upcoming move. This immediate employee engagement helps us reduce our drive alone rate. The Get Back on the Bike program was started to help employees who are interested but concerned about riding their bicycles get over the hump and begin pedaling regularly. Originally funded by Kaiser Permanente, the program provides participants with equipment, a bicycle tune-up, a pre/post fitness test, and eight Lunch and Learn sessions through the academic year. In exchange, participants commit to pedaling three days a week in warm months and one day a week in cold months.

Now after three cohorts have exceeded our participant goals we have created bicycling champions on campus. One participant lost 40 pounds during the program, many have begun pedaling to work daily regardless of season, and every committed participant pedals away with a deeper connection with bicycling for transportation. Creating consistent, visible commuter amenities helps CSU remove barriers for people who feel a car is necessary for their daily travel. Providing break rooms, lactation rooms, meditation rooms, commuter showers, and other non-motorized infrastructure gives the campus community space to complete personal tasks necessary during the work day. Having an area to make a meal, space for nursing mothers, a place to meditate, or a shower to get cleaned up for the work day allows a bicycle to become viable options for our campus users.

Finally, putting together great events help us say thank you to all our non-motorized users on campus. We start the year with We Ride which collects campus and City of Fort Collins partners to be a one stop shop for our newest students by providing bicycle registration, a transit bus tour, bicycle safety information, exposure to bicycle non-profits, exposure to our bicycling culture, and a free helmet. We help confirm non-motorized transportation behaviors with Bike to Breakfast where say thank you for pedaling with a quick breakfast for students on the go. Earth Week at CSU consists of events each day of the week for bicycling, longboarding, ridesharing, and transit. Consistently our busiest events are summer and winter Bike to Work Day where we typically take top honors out of the 65 stations citywide.

Through these processes we are successful in welcoming new CSU students and employees while supporting our existing bicycling culture. We look forward to sharing these programs and learning from others at the 2019 Summit.