News
Putting shorter commute on map
The solutions to the Seattle area’s traffic mess don’t all
involve concrete and steel and billions of taxpayer dollars.
By Eric Pryne
Seattle Times staff reporter
Part of the fix might be as simple, and as cheap, as
finding a job that’s closer to home.
Not everyone wants to do that. Not everyone can.
But if people who work for a company with many offices could transfer from the branch 20 miles
away to the branch five miles from home, the freeways probably wouldn’t be so full.
Seattle transportation entrepreneur Gene Mullins has spent years exploring that modest notion.
Here’s what he has learned:
Nearly half the area’s workers are employed by businesses that operate more than one local store,
office or factory.
And, at least on paper, many of them could do similar jobs for the same employer at a site closer
to home.
Promoting transfers within companies that result in shorter commutes should be part of the region’s
strategy for combating congestion, Mullins says, right up there with carpooling and riding the bus.
He has given the idea a name — "proximate commuting." He has devised a mapping program to
help employers and employees make it happen.
He has tried to sell his services to several big firms, without much success.
Now Gene Mullins finally is getting his big chance.
His one-man company, ProximateCommute, has struck a deal with Boeing to test the idea with part
of the company’s Puget Sound area work force. Mullins says the voluntary Web-based program will
allow Worker A, perhaps an administrative assistant who lives in Everett and hates commuting to
Renton, to find Worker B, another administrative assistant who lives in Renton and detests the long
drive to Everett.
If their duties and skills are similar enough, and their bosses approve, they can swap jobs.
Boeing doesn’t want to talk about the test until details have been worked out. But Boeing Vice
President Bob Watt, who became acquainted with Mullins and proximate commuting in his
previous job as chief executive of the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, is enthusiastic about
the concept.
Reducing commutes isn’t just good public policy, Watt says, it’s good business sense: "This could
actually help organizations retain people," he said.
Transportation experts who have followed Mullins’ work say it’s too early to tell if proximate
commuting will work.
But they agree it’s an intriguing concept that deserves more attention.
"There’s really not a single solution that’s going to solve the transportation problem," says Phil
Winters, a transportation researcher at the University of South Florida. "But there are a lot of things
we can do that will help.
"This may be one of them."
Mullins, 52, is overjoyed an idea that came to him when he was stuck in traffic years ago finally is
getting noticed. He can’t understand why it’s taken so long.
"It’s a way to reduce congestion while still letting most people do what they want to do," he says,
"which is, keep driving their cars."
Commuting to Bothell
Mullins first started thinking seriously about traffic when his own commute suddenly got worse more
than a decade ago.
He was living in Magnolia and working for an environmental consulting firm in North Seattle.
When the company moved to Bothell, his commute time doubled. "I started thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it
be nice if I could just swap jobs with someone?’ "
Mullins developed proximate-commute mapping software after starting a consulting business. The
state Department of Transportation agreed to pay for a trial in 1994.
Key Bank agreed to serve as guinea pig.
His preliminary work revealed only 17 percent of the employees at 14 bank branches worked at the
branch closest to their homes. The rest, on average, lived closer to 10 branches than the one
where they worked.
Mullins and Key Bank picked 30 branches for their test. Bank human-resources officials agreed to
try harder to place new hires in branches close to their homes. Branch managers agreed to give
preference to qualified applicants who lived nearby when filling vacancies in-house.
Mullins used his software to map employees’ long-distance commutes and suggest swaps.
One teller who lived in Kent and worked at Northgate traded jobs with a teller who lived in
Lynnwood and worked in Tukwila.
At the end of the 15-month trial, the average commute distance for employees at the 30 branches
had dropped 17 percent.
Plenty of potential
A University of Washington transportation researcher who reviewed the project said proximate
commuting had much potential and recommended more extensive trials.
Mullins collected awards from organizations ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to
the Association of Washington Business.
"Since the results were good," Mullins says, "I assumed the world would beat a path to my door."
It didn’t.
Over the next few years, Mullins did feasibility studies on proximate commuting for more
employers, here and in California, sometimes with their money, sometimes with his own.
No one bought his program.
Why didn’t it take off? Government wasn’t supporting or requiring it, says an official with one firm
that decided against pursuing the idea.
What’s more, the official says, the company didn’t see any economic benefit.
Employers can be obstacle
Wayne Elson, an air-pollution specialist with the Environmental Protection Agency, has followed
Mullins’ work since the Key Bank test. He says proximate commuting stalled, in part, because
"employers are not in the business of reducing their employees’ commute distances."
A state law does require larger employers to reduce employee drive-alone commuting. But the law
applies only to work sites where more than 100 employees arrive between 6 and 9 a.m. Many of
the sites where proximate commuting might work best — chain restaurants, supermarkets — fall
below that threshold.
Mullins says his program should benefit employers’ bottom line. Boeing’s Watt agrees. Tardiness
and absenteeism should drop, both say. Good workers will be more likely to stay.
But Mullins acknowledges those benefits haven’t yet been proved.
John Shadoff, transportation demand-management program manager for the state Department of
Transportation, says his agency’s inability to finance more trials also held Mullins back.
Mullins’ big break, the Boeing contract, came after another government agency took an interest.
The EPA provided the money for Mullins to conduct a study in 1999 and 2000 of the feasibility of
a proximate-commuting program at Boeing’s Puget Sound-area plants. Mullins got the job codes,
home ZIP codes and work sites for 85,000 people then on the company payroll.
After crunching the data, he reported in December 2000 that half those workers theoretically could
be doing similar work at a Boeing plant closer to their homes.
If they all started working at the nearest plant, Mullins calculated, the total commute miles they
drive, gallons of gas they consume and tons of pollutants their cars spew into the air each year
would drop by more than half.
Boeing reviewed Mullins’ numbers and agreed to give proximate commuting its first big test.
A launch date hasn’t been set, but Boeing already is winning praise.
"We have this ‘Edifice Complex,’ where we’re primarily focused on concrete to solve our problems,"
says Peter Hurley, executive director of the anti-freeway Transportation Choices Coalition.
"Boeing, to its credit, has been willing to look for more creative, less expensive ways."
Depth of interest unknown
How big a dent might proximate commuting make in gridlock? How many long-distance
commuters might be interested?
No one knows, including Mullins.
Proximate commuting isn’t for everyone, he admits.
It probably has most potential in organizations that employ many people at many sites doing the
same jobs, says Daniel Rodriguez, a University of North Carolina regional-planning professor who
has conducted feasibility studies. Many employers don’t fit that profile, he adds.
Winters, the Florida researcher, says proximate commuting also may encounter resistance from
firms and workers who would seemingly benefit. "Don’t automatically assume that everybody wants
to work closer to home," he says.
Employees might not want to leave familiar surroundings and co-workers, or a boss they like, for
something unknown.
The job closer to home might have the same title and pay, but not be appealing for some other
reason.
In some companies, workers might lose seniority by switching.
What’s more, Winters says, even if employees want to swap, managers might object to breaking up
a productive team.
Despite those obstacles, both Winters and Rodriguez are optimistic about proximate commuting’s
potential.
Mullins’ brainchild already has had a small impact in Seattle.
Judy Walker, district human-resources manager for Key Bank, says the company still tries to place
new hires in branches close to their homes. "He did get us to thinking about reducing the
commute."
Reshuffling library staff
The King County Library System, subject of another Mullins’ study, is using the information he
generated as it reshuffles its staff, offering some workers transfers to branches closer to home. "It’s
beneficial to them, it’s beneficial to the community and it’s beneficial to the environment," says
human-resources manager Charlene Richards.
The Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce endorsed proximate commuting in December. It sent
letters to 20 large employers, urging them to seriously consider the program.
Mullins’ persistence finally seems to be paying off.
"I call this the Pet Rock of transportation," he says. "People keep saying, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’
"
Eric Pryne can be reached at 206-464-2231 or [email protected].
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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