The city of Durango invites local businesses to participate in a weeklong business commuter challenge to promote sustainable transportation from Sunday through Feb. 11.
Coinciding with the challenge on Feb. 11 is Winter Bike to Work Day.
“The event name highlights bikes, but Winter Bike to Work Day is a celebration for all clean commuters in Durango,” said Devin King, multimodal administrator for the city of Durango.
Durango has been celebrating its Winter Bike to Work Day since 2011, he said. Since 2015, the city has been asking businesses to compete to see which can be sustainable commuting businesses for a week.
“It’s basically pitting businesses and organizations against each other to compete for the cleanest commuting business,” he said.
King said the business commuter challenge takes into account how many people work at a participating business, and what percentage of people at that business are practicing a clean commute throughout the week.
“The clean commute we’re talking about is biking, walking, rolling by some other means than a bicycle, taking public transit, carpooling or telecommuting,” he said.
This is the first year telecommuting will also be considered.
“A lot of people brought up telecommuting,” King said. “From a transportation standpoint, if you’re telecommuting, there are fewer folks on the road.”
Last year’s winner of the winter business commuter challenge was Visit Durango, he said.
“We usually have a lot of the same people participating every year, so there’s some pretty good competition and rivalry,” he said.
The city of Durango holds the contest twice a year, once in the summer and once in the winter. King said because of the obvious temperature differences between summer and winter, the summer event usually has more participating businesses.
“We also do this for Clean Commute Week in the summer, and there are usually a bunch more businesses that participate,” he said.
Businesses looking to sign up and compete for the business commuter challenge snowflake trophy are asked to email King about participating by Wednesday.
Events and programs like the Winter Bike to Work Day and the business commuter challenge are all part of the city of Durango’s sustainability plan, he said.
“By promoting clean commuting, we’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions and traffic,” he said. “In regards to infrastructure, clean commuting reduces the number of miles traveled on a road and prolongs the life of our roadway system.”
Those participating in Durango’s Winter Bike to Work Day can stop at several stations, including Studio &, Singletrack Café, Bird’s and San Juan Cycles. Residents can pick up or print out a passport and visit two or more stations to get a stamp and be entered into a prize drawing.
njohnson@durangoherald.com
An earlier version of this story reported that Short Elliot and Hendrickson Inc. won last year’s winter business commuter challenge. The winner of the event was Visit Durango. Incorrect information was given to the Herald.
