Getting where you need to go – with less driving

“We help people find ways to get around without driving by themselves.” That’s how Michelle Leonard, communications and outreach manager for Commuter Services, describes the organization’s mission. 

Commuter Services connects individuals, residential properties, and employers with a variety of transportation options, ranging from transit passes to carpool setups. 

“The priority for our area, of course, is the congestion on and around 494, but (reducing) that, in turn, also helps to mitigate some of the greenhouse gas emissions in this part of the (metro) area,” Leonard said. She also noted that residents, employers, and commuters can access Commuter Services’ resources for free.

Commuter Services is the transportation management organization (TMO) for the I-494 Corridor Commission. The commission was established in 1986 and functions as a joint powers agreement among five cities along the Interstate 494 corridor: Eden Prairie, Bloomington, Edina, Minnetonka, and Richfield.

Each community pays membership dues based on its population. The organization has also historically received funding from the Minnesota Legislature and through federal congestion mitigation and air quality grants. 

A city council member and a city staff member from each participating municipality serve on the I-494 Corridor Commission. Eden Prairie’s current representatives are City Council member Lisa Toomey and economic development manager David Lindahl. 

Monthly prize drawings for a sustainable transportation pledge

“One of the things that’s always perplexed me is kids rode their bikes to their friend’s place growing up, or they rode the school bus. And those were sustainable travel habits that you had as a child, and then you got your driver’s license, and all that goes away,” Leonard said. 

Commuter Services’ resources are designed to get adults thinking about some of those options again. They include safety tips on walking, tips on succeeding in a remote work environment – “the best commute is no commute,” Leonard says – and brochures on Minnesota bicycling laws. 

Most can be accessed or requested via the Commuter Services’ website, recently updated to commuter.org. The website also hosts a monthly pledge where people promise to try a sustainable commute once during the month and are entered for a prize drawing. Typical prizes are monetary gift cards.

To celebrate Bike Month in May, the grand prize will be an electric bicycle. (See sidebar for more on Commuter Services’ May 15 Bike Month Celebration at Eden Prairie’s Round Lake Park.) 

People are encouraged to think about where they can use transportation options other than single-occupancy personal vehicle trips in their daily lives, whether or not it’s officially for a commute, Leonard said. 

One example, she said, might be several parents meeting at one location and carpooling their kids to a soccer game. Or, she suggested, someone could offer to pick up some groceries for an elderly neighbor on their own trip to the store, meaning the neighbor would not need to call a transportation service like Metro Mobility.

Carpool matching, resources

For those who are commuting to work or school, however, Commuter Services offers help setting up carpools. One resource provides a guide to conversations to have with someone you’ve already identified as a carpool partner. 

Those conversations might cover, Leonard said, things like “preference on whether the radio is on or not (or) do you talk during the route? Everybody’s a little bit different.”

For those who haven’t yet identified a carpool partner, Commuter Services offers access to a regional carpool matching system. Free carpool parking signs are also available to designate preferential parking spots. 

Some organizations ask Commuter Services to issue passes and operate their carpool system, while other organizations choose to do so on their own. “It’s whatever they need, whatever fits best for them,” Leonard said. 

The Guaranteed Ride Home program reimburses participants in carpools or other sustainable commutes up to $100 per year for expenses incurred in emergency situations when their regular commute isn’t available.

Commuter Services also works with employers to offer informational meetings and displays on transportation options. A vanpool program provides a vehicle for employee ride sharing, available to employers with a minimum number of participants. Businesses can also request a free basic bicycle rack.

Discounted transit passes 

For both employers and multifamily residential properties, Commuter Services facilitates enrollment in discount transit pass programs. One option, the Transit Assistance Program, provides reduced-cost rides to qualifying low-income people. A Metropass program allows employers to enroll and offer the $83 per month pass to employees at a pre-tax rate.

The Residential Transit Pass is an unlimited-use pass for each unit of a multifamily dwelling, at a cost of $14 per unit per month.

“You can use it for work. You can use it to go to the mall. You can use it to wherever the transit is going,” Leonard said. “It’s not specific that you have to take it for work. It’s not specific that you have to take it to a certain location.”

Since the Residential Transit Pass is assigned to a unit, rather than the person living in the unit, it’s a planned expenditure for property management, Leonard said. Currently, no Eden Prairie properties are enrolled in the program, although some have expressed interest.

The pass systems function on Metro Transit’s buses and Green and Blue light rail train lines, as well as on SouthWest Transit buses. 

Speaking of SouthWest Transit’s new 686 bus route along the I-494 corridor between Eden Prairie’s SouthWest Station and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), Leonard said, “We’re really happy and excited that went into effect, because we really have needed an east-west connection between Eden Prairie and, you know, the airport, Mall of America.”

On the 686’s first day of service, Leonard said, she rode the 686L local route from SouthWest Station to MSP and back. “I was the only one on the bus, except for a gal who got on the bus at the same time I did – 2:30 in the afternoon – and she asked the drivers, ‘This stops at the Orange Line, right?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’

“And so we got over to the Orange Line, and she got off, and she was able to make her connection. And that’s exactly what this area has needed,” Leonard said.

While Metro Transit’s Orange Line bus route functions well as a north-south route in the metro, Leonard said the addition of SouthWest Transit’s east-west 686 route expands commuter transportation options. 

“Somebody was able to get onto the bus in Eden Prairie and get over to the Orange Line and then continue on her journey,” Leonard said. 

She noted that personal vehicle transportation accounts for a high amount of greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), transportation was the largest source of direct emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide in 2022. The EPA attributes 57% of these transportation-related direct emissions to personal vehicles. 

“I’ve got a presentation that we share with schools,” Leonard said. It uses an example of a student driving two miles between school and home – four miles round trip – for six months. The presentation provides a calculation, she said: “This is how much greenhouse gas you and you alone have created. And then this is how many trees – it was like 50 trees – that it would take to offset that.”

“It’s just trying to get people to think about (their) daily habits,” Leonard said.

Bike Month Celebration will offer bus bike rack practice and more in Eden Prairie

On May 15, Commuter Services will host a Bike Month Celebration at Round Lake Park in Eden Prairie. Michelle Leonard, Commuter Services’ communications and outreach manager, describes the event as a party, deliberately scheduled the day before May 16’s Ride Your Bike to Work Day.

“Bike commuting is the most often used alternative travel mode after working from home,” Leonard said. “The bike community is insanely popular in this area, which is great because it’s healthy. It’s a zero-emission trip.”

Commuter Services has many resources for bike commuting, including a bus bike rack, which will be at the Round Lake Park event. Generally mounted on the front of a bus, a rack like this allows commuters to take their bicycle along on a bus ride. It can provide a means of getting from a designated bus stop to their final destination, Leonard said.

She added, however, that “It’s a little intimidating because there’s a bus, and they’ve got, like, 30 seconds (to mount a bike). So we have a freestanding bus bike rack at the same height as it would be on the front of the bus, and people can learn to put their bike on the rack in a no-stress environment.”

Commuter Services will have area bike trail maps available at the event. Those maps are among the bicycle resources people can request through Commuter Services’ website. 

The organization also hosts webinars such as one about what to look for when considering an electric bicycle purchase and another scheduled for May 9 on the principles of bike safety. The webinars are available on demand after their air date.

Three Rivers Park District will have a Virtual Bike Ride at the event, where participants will be able to see the view from pedaling along the regional park system’s trails. The Bike Month Celebration will also include a group bike ride around Round Lake.

“It’s not a huge lake, so it’s not a huge ride or anything like that,” Leonard said. “It’s just the idea of getting a group together so that people who haven’t done a group ride before can do it at your own pace, and kind of get a feel for what something like that is. 

“Maybe they’ll enjoy that as a family or as an individual, and they’ll maybe want to look into doing that more recreationally or feel more comfortable in those situations in the future,” she said.

Those who participate in the sustainable commute pledge during Bike Month will be entered into a drawing for one of three prizes: an electric bicycle, a $150 Visa gift card, or a swag bag filled with bike-related products and gear. 

The Bike Month Celebration will be held at the Round Lake Park Building from 4 to 6 p.m. on May 15. Round Lake Park is located at 16691 Valley View Road. 

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Editor’s note: This story is the sixth in an ongoing series called “Sustainability in Action.” The series spotlights sustainability efforts in Eden Prairie at various levels, from local government and businesses to community groups and residents. It includes a page dedicated to local, state, and national sustainability resources. This series has received support from a grant from the Eden Prairie Community Foundation.

If you have an idea for this series, contact the editors.