Free ROWE Pilot for Twin Cities Companies - No Joke!
October 27th, 2008 by Cali & Jody
In fact, according to 2003 figures, in certain metropolitan areas, the average rush hour driver loses as many as 93 hours per year to travel delay - equivalent to more than two weeks of work, amounting annually to a virtual “congestion tax” as high as $1,598 per traveler in wasted time and fuel. Nationwide, congestion imposes costs on the economy of over $65 billion per year, a figure that has more than doubled since 1993 (according to the 2005 Urban Mobility Report).
That’s all about to change.
In May 2006, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced its National Strategy to Reduce Congestion on America’s Transportation Network (the “Congestion Initiative”), a bold and comprehensive national program to reduce congestion on the nation’s roads, rails, runways, and waterways. One major component of the Congestion Initiative is the Urban Partnership Agreement (”UPA”), through which the USDOT is partnering with selected metro areas of “Urban Partners” in order to demonstrate strategies with proven effectiveness in reducing traffic congestion.
The Urban Partners that were selected to be part of this initiative are: Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York City, Miami, San Francisco, and Seattle. Each partner will be executing strategies in the areas of tolling, transit, technology, and telecommuting to help relieve congestion.
We are very, very proud to announce that we’ve been selected by the MN Department of Transportation to assist with this important initiative. We will be selecting companies on, or near, the 35W corridor to partner with to migrate all, or part, of their employee base to a Results-Only Work Environment. As you all know, in a ROWE, work is no longer a place you go - it’s something you do. People aren’t expected to physically come to the office at 8:00 a.m. or stay until 5:00 p.m. The focus is on results - not physical presence or amount of hours worked. Those of you in the Twin Cities know what a mess 35W is during the morning and late afternoon - our goal is to have free-flowing traffic on 35W all day, every day.
Twin Cities readers: to make this happen, we need your help. We need you to send us contact information for people in your company that would be interested in being part of the UPA initiative. Who might that be?
- Government Relations - what a perfect way to engage in the community and affect a big item of public concern: traffic congestion.
- Human Resources - ROWE has been proven to affect two major HR focuses: productivity and retention.
- Business Line Leaders - you might know of one or two business line leaders that are forward-thinking or have a particular interest in being on the cutting edge of MN movements.
If we end up signing on a company for the UPA project that you refer us to, we’ll send you a signed copy of Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. Send contact info to caliandjody@caliandjody.com and let’s get rid of rush hour on 35W once and for all!
P.S. The MN Dept. of Transportation is funding all of our work with Twin Cities companies - that means companies that are selected to be part of the UPA project get free ROWE migrations. That’s right - FREE.
Great news! Any Seattle counterpart initiatives related to ROWEs? I think of ROWE every time I see a traffic snarl here—it doesn’t need to be this way (for so many reasons).
When are you coming to Wisconsin? Madison’s belt line suffers the same fate as the 35W corridor - it turn’s into a parking lot twice a day… If it snows… ?#!>@?!
Really, all of us can’t wait to see the results on the traffic patterns after the implementation of ROWE at several business’ along the 35W corridor!
PS. I have been caught in the 35W parking lot before on a visit to the area — not fun. After that I always timed my arrival/departure to not be during rush hour…
This is fantastic news! Congratulations! I would love to think my “company” would participate, but I realistically do not think this will happen. It won’t stop me from trying though. I can’t wait to see how this all plays out!
This is a great opportunity for everybody. It will help the energy crisis we are living today. Indirectly, companies will benefit by increasing their productivity. This revolutionary approach is spreading to all areas: Goverment, Industry, Education, No-profit organizations, and so on. In a few words, if companies do not join to this rare opportunity they will lose. The price of not trying will be too big. The future is in their own hands.
Cali and Jody, congratulations you are writting history.
Wahoooo! Congrats! Let the change begin….
Way to go Cali and Jody!
I’m with D. Lee Grooms on this one. Traffic in Seattle is terrible: right and left merges and exits, no major transit system other than bus, and since it’s a great place to live there are more cars than road for hours during rush hour (which starts earlier and ends later than ever before!).
You know my passion is non-profit but I love my town! Let me know when you are ready to bring this to Seattle and count me in as one who wants to be part of the transformation!
Congratulations - great news!
@D. Lee Grooms @Kris Hoots - we were in Seattle a couple days ago and had a front row seat to the traffic *mess* you describe. Our driver told us that there are some people who travel 2.5 hours one way to work - is this true?!
Seattle should have a counterpart initiative as part of the UPA project, but we don’t have the details on it. The WA DOT would have them, though - contact them and find out!
@Mad Guy - we’re confident this project with MNDOT will yield such amazing results that every state in the country will want to follow MN’s footsteps. So…being our neighbor, WI shouldn’t be too far behind!
@Concerned Employee - we agree. If there was ever a time to get on board with ROWE, it’s now. We hear companies wondering about what they will do to help their employees with the high gas prices, and we can’t scream “ROWE” loud enough. Again, the MNDOT project will do wonders for traffic congestion in the Twin Cities - and other major cities will take notice.
These are great news because the traffic in rush hours is awful, sometimes i even prefer to go 20 miles by bike
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