SmartTrips program wants less cars downtown

The City of Portland’s Office of Transportation wants to “make your downtown trips easier, healthier, and less expensive.”

Their SmartTrips Downtown program is racheting up and I just came across this nifty pledge form (download PDF version).

SmartTrips is an individualized marketing program that “lets employees who work in downtown Portland choose customized transportation information and incentives.” Or in other words, it gives people the encouragement and education they need to get out of their cars and onto public transit, carpools, bikes, and so on.

Participants in this program can get free goodies after taking an online survey. They can also mail in this pledge form and be entered into a monthly prize drawing.

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)

Founder of BikePortland (in 2005). Father of three. North Portlander. Basketball lover. Car owner and driver. If you have questions or feedback about this site or my work, feel free to contact me at @jonathan_maus on Twitter, via email at maus.jonathan@gmail.com, or phone/text at 503-706-8804. Also, if you read and appreciate this site, please become a supporter.

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Jessica Roberts
Jessica Roberts
17 years ago

Well, I mean, they technically want *fewer* trips downtown… 😉

Jessica Roberts
Jessica Roberts
17 years ago

Car trips, that is.

Steve Hoyt
17 years ago

Thanks Jonathan for the post!

Just to clarify, SmartTrips Downtown is looking for BikePortland.org readers to help us connect with their downtown employers so we can provide free transportation options information and incentives to their co-workers. Please contact me at (503) 823-7191, steve.hoyt@pdxtrans.org.

SmartTrips Downtown is our downtown, employer-based project. PDOT Transportation Options also has our neighborhood- and residential-based program, SmartTrips Southeast, that will be kicking off imminently. View our past neighborhood projects at: http://www.portlandonline.com/transportation/index.cfm?c=43819&

If you don’t work downtown and you would like free bike and walking maps or information about transit, carpooling, vanpooling and carsharing, try this: http://www.gettingaroundportland.org.

Lastly, SmartTrips Downtown wants more people downtown and fewer people driving alone.

Thanks,

Steve Hoyt

Donna
Donna
17 years ago

I got a free lunch. It was tasty.

Joel
Joel
17 years ago

I say this because I care:

Please, on behalf of grammaratti everywhere, change the title! The program doesn’t WANT anything (O of T does), and it’s FEWER cars. How about “SmartTrips program goal: fewer cars downtown”.

There, that ought to get me blacklisted on the blog. = )

Burr
Burr
17 years ago

‘Less cars downtown’ will never happen as long as they keep adding more long-term parking to the downtown core. Can someone from the city please tell us how many new spaces will be added when the new garage at SW Park and Taylor (behind the Fox Tower) opens?

Randy
Randy
17 years ago

I went to their site, it’s too glunky. They need a section to poll readers. How abouts some real ideas for getting cars out of dowtown like incentives for ecocabs, getting the biggest polluter-buses off the bikemall, taxing suv’s, and rewarding people who drive biofueled vehicles. There are hundreds walk friendly cities in Europe that Portland could be emulating. Otherwise we’ll keep paying in air pollution dividends.

Macaroni
Macaroni
17 years ago

I’d like some clean air. Diesel-free air and that includes bio-diesel free, too.

Macaroni
Macaroni
17 years ago

And why does the city of Portland mandate that taxis have to be huge gas-hogs? safety can’t be an issue any longer because new cars have air bags and side air bags.
nothing makes sense these days.

Ken Wetherell
Ken Wetherell
16 years ago

I found the BikePortland photo posting of the Smart Trips Southeast bike delivery program, but no details here or on PDOT\’s website about it.

It sounds like an interesting project, but what is it?

Photos:
http://bikeportland.org/photos/tags/tags/portland/tags/smarttrips/tags/smarttrips/