City encourages Seattleites to Walk, Bike, or Ride this summer

The City of Seattle’s annual Walk Bike Ride Challenge is on again in an effort to inspire residents to park their cars and find other ways to get around. The Seattle Department of Transportation hosts the challenge, and offers prizes for those who walk, bike and ride the most this summer.

“It’s estimated that 40 percent of urban travel is for trips of two miles or less and close to 90 percent of those trips are by car,” according to SDOT. “The  challenge premise is that many of these trips could easily be taken by public transit, on foot or by bicycle – saving money, helping the environment and offering the chance to stay fit all at the same time.”

The challenge is for individuals to convert 24 solo car trips to walking, biking, car/vanpooling, or riding transit between June 15 and September 9. In doing so, you could win one of the following prizes:

•Grand Prize: A brand new Specialized bike (Sirrus or Vita Elite) & helmet worth $800 from Gregg’s Cycles

•$200 REI Gift Card

•$150 Zipcar gift certificate

•$100 Farmers Market gift certificate

•$100 Nordstrom gift card

•Car2Go membership and four hours of free use

•Family pack tickets to the Woodland Park Zoo

•Special prizes to be announced during the Challenge

This year, SDOT is partnering with Luum, a Seattle-based tech startup that exists to help communities tackle challenges to improve their communities. Luum uses social connections and team-based competition, measured with feedback and incentives, to get people involved. A major focus of Luum is transportation, so they’ll be working to help corporate groups reduce commuting trips in the region.

SDOT says that in the 2011 and 2012 Walk Bike Ride challenges, 1,900 people took part, avoiding 26,219 trips and 423,363 miles of driving alone. They kept 412,369 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere. They hope to pass the 2,000-participant mark this year. To sign up, click here.