A Personal Bike Commute Challenge

In 2008 I bike commuted more than in any other year. That said, it was still not enough, and I intend to rectify this situation for 2009.

In my Goals for 2009, I wrote:

Commute to work by bike (more on this later)

It's easy to say "I'll bike commute more", especially in the absence of negative consequences. This plan needs consequences with teeth.

Here's the plan:

Every day I drive to work, I'll donate $10 to Bicycle Alliance of Washington (BAW). I'll record every car commute, and at the end of each month send a check (if necessary) to BAW.

Since my company has a generous matching gifts program, this will be doubly good for BAW.

To be clear, I don't go to the office every day. I'm lucky in that I work for a company that allows/tolerates telecommuting. I generally go to the office between 1 and 3 days per week. The worst case scenario (for me, best case for BAW) would be roughly:

(3 car commutes per week) * (49 work weeks per year) * ($10 per drive) = $1470 donation.

As I write this, it's Sunday morning, 01/11/2009, and Kasia & I are still in Poland. We'll return to the Seattle are this Tuesday evening, 01/13/2009.

The commute challenge starts Wednesday 01/14/2009.