The City of Boulder is considering new incentives to encourage employers to offer free bus passes to their employees as part of a broader effort to reduce the number of people who drive single-occupancy vehicles to work.
City officials said they are developing a new financial incentive in response to a drop in the number of Boulder businesses offering the free bus passes, known as the EcoPass. The annual pass provides free rides on all RTD buses around the city and to other cities, as well as the Denver International Airport.
This trend was underscored by the recent Boulder Valley Employee Survey. The survey is the latest in a series of reports commissioned by the city since 1991 to monitor the modes of transportation used by workers for their commutes. The 2022 survey was based on responses from nearly 900 employees who work in primarily in the City of Boulder.
The survey found a larger share of Boulder’s workers are commuting in single-occupancy vehicles than in prior years. And the percentage of workers who walk, bike or take the bus has declined. The drop in the use of buses was notable, declining from 10% in 2017 to 4% in 2022.
One likely reason for this decline is that more workers are now working from home. About 14% of respondents said they were working from home on the day of the survey. In 2017, 5% said they were working from home.
Another factor is the reduction in RTD services, city officials said. Since the Covid pandemic, several local routes have been eliminated. RTD has reinstated just three morning and evening FF2 express buses from Boulder to Denver. The transit station at Boulder Junction, which was closed in 2020, still has no buses operating out of it despite being located in a “transit-oriented” neighborhood that was built partially on top of a bus station.
Still another factor is that fewer workers have access to the EcoPass. That’s because fewer businesses are providing passes to their employees
The percentage of workers in Boulder who have the annual EcoPass declined from 44% in 2017 to 24% in 2022, according to the survey. The most recent percentage is the lowest in about two decades.
Workers can get a discounted annual EcoPass through a neighborhood program or their employer. CU Boulder students pay a fee and receive the bus pass with their student ID.
This decline in EcoPass use presents a challenge for the city as it seeks to encourage fewer people to commute by car. The transportation sector is the city’s second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions and automobile tailpipe emissions contribute to ground-level ozone, a harmful gas that regularly prompts public health warnings across the Front Range in the summer.
“The EcoPass is the most powerful tool in changing someone’s travel behavior,” Chris Hagelin, a senior transportation planner for the city, told Boulder Reporting Lab. “We also have found over the years that people with an EcoPass not only take the bus more, they also walk and bike more.”
As EcoPass ownership declines, some see housing affordability as a culprit
To provide workers with a free EcoPass, businesses typically sign a contract with RTD that requires them to pay an annual fee based on the total number of employees, according to Boulder Transportation Connections, an organization that is part of the Boulder Chamber and helps to get more businesses participating in the EcoPass program.
Some employers may have decided to drop out of the EcoPass program due to cost, especially with more workers working from home, said Darcy Kitching, a transportation demand management outreach specialist for Boulder Transportation Connections.
The process for getting an EcoPass could also be time consuming. Elaine C. Erb, a sustainable transportation planner for Boulder Transportation Connections, said businesses have had to satisfy certain requirements, such as submitting photos for each employee. Some employees have had to wait weeks for their passes to be mailed to them. Others have had to go to a bus station to pick it up.
Erb and Kitching said they expect that more businesses will soon be participating in the EcoPass program, however.
Erb said RTD now allows people to upload their EcoPass to the RTD app, making it easier for employees to get a pass sooner.
Separately, a new state rebate program provides employers a 50% rebate on the cost of the EcoPass.
The City of Boulder already reimburses businesses to help cover the cost of their first and second EcoPass contracts with RTD. Hagelin said the city is working on a rebate to encourage businesses that dropped out of the EcoPass program to rejoin.
But Kitching said getting people to ride the bus requires more than providing a free pass. People need to be able to afford to live close to a bus route, she said.
“It’s housing,” Kitching said. “To me, the answer is let’s help more people live in Boulder.”
The research firm that conducted the survey, Polco National Research Center, surveyed employees from businesses that were primarily located in the City of Boulder — zip codes 80301 through 80310.
The report states that about 34% of respondents said they lived in the City of Boulder and about 66% said they lived outside the city. (In the 2017 survey, about 42% of respondents said they lived in the City of Boulder.)
A separate 2022 survey conducted by the same firm of about 1,700 CU Boulder workers found that 25% of the university’s workers live in the City of Boulder. That’s the lowest percentage since 2005. This includes researchers, faculty, administration officials and other university employees. These employees earn a higher hourly wage, on average, than the employees surveyed for the Boulder Valley report.
The Boulder Valley report also indicates that workers are commuting longer distances than in prior years, especially workers who live outside the city. Non-city residents commute an average of 18 miles, or 30 minutes, compared to city residents who commute an average of about four miles, or 14 minutes. Some non-city residents said they live outside the service territory for RTD.
Hagelin, of the city, said city planners estimate about 60% of the city’s workers commute in from out of town. He said when he joined the city in 2007, about 40% of workers traveled in from outside the city.
“The people who are nonresident employees, they are living farther and farther away,” he said. “Certainly that’s related to housing affordability.”
Correction: This story was updated to include a more precise characterization of the businesses included in the study and to include additional findings from the 2022 and 2017 Polco National Research Center surveys.
As someone who lives in East County and works in Boulder, I have no reason to ask my employer to re-up our eco-pass program. I have no easy access to a bus here in western Erie. I have to drive into Lafayette or somehow get to Safeway. There aren’t many pick up and drop off times, so I can’t get home easily if I have a sick child in the middle of the day, for example. And it takes much longer for me to take the bus than it does for me to just drive in. The situation is complex, but with more people living out of Boulder and driving in because of high housing costs, we will need more options if you want people out of cars.
Can an individual retired person obtain an eco-pass? If so, how much would it cost?
Need to start reducing the number of parking spaces. It’s cheaper to drive with all the free or cheap parking in town. Tax each spot the same as if a building is there. Example is the 13th and Walnut parking lot. It should be taxed at a rate if there was a 55ft building on the site. Or just call it blighted and make the owners build a 55ft residential apartment/condo building.
There was no mention of the fact that vandalism and theft (particularly of catalytic converters) in the RTD parking facilities, particularly the Table Mesa garage, discourages MANY from wanting to park there, and hence, not ride the bus.
Our neighborhood is one of the few that has a successful neighborhood eco pass program. I fear its days are numbered as RTD is continually increasing the cost to neighborhood groups. Eventually low income and seniors on a fixed income will be price d out. Reduced service is also impacting ridership, especially the FF2 between Boulder and Denver and the inadequate AB route to the airport.
In addition, RTD reduced fares, esp. for Regional buses (like the US 36 FF buses). Previously my wife bus commuted to Denver 4 days a week at $11/day. Now, with increased work from home time, it’s 2 days a week, and the bus costs half as much. That’s a 75% reduction in cost. Eco Passes just don’t make sense anymore (except for a few select businesses).