Of course,
this is the ideal:
With gas prices so high, Ferrum College is allowing some employees to telecommute one day a week.
...[Natalie] Faunce [Director of Public Relations for Ferrum] said it was easy for Ferrum to switch to the telecommute plan because the college is on a flex work schedule for employees.
In a flex schedule, employees adjust their arrival and departure time to suit their individual needs rather than working a traditional 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. day, or a 5-day week.
There is an extent to which our congestion and consumption rates are driven by adherence to an outmoded idea of a work schedule, where "being in the office" is equivalent to "getting work done." For a number of employees and jobs, technology has made the need for an office almost obsolete, and with advances in speed and image quality of teleconferencing software, even important meetings can be held without getting in the car.
Virginia's Telework!VA program is, in the targeted areas of Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, and Richmond, trying to help employers implement telework programs not only by subsidizing equipment, but also training managers how to manage teleworkers. It is this last part that I think scares many traditional supervisors, but I don't think it should. Training teleworkers tends to create measures that focus much more on outcomes than on work hours; this can both invigorate employees who thrive in outcome-based work, as well as identify low-producing workers who have gotten by on face-time alone. It's certainly not perfect - there is a lot to be said for the ideas generated in a vital, social workplace - but there is no reason that the traditional 9-5 can't be modified, as it has to great success in Ferrum.
RIDE Solutions now has a
photostream on Flickr. Right now, I've posted some historical images - propaganda posters from WWII (including the infamous, "When you drive alone, you drive with Hitler!" poster) but I'll be working to get Clean Commute Day and other photos up as well.
I'm experimenting with a bicycle wiki in the hopes that we can use this collaborative technology to help unite some of the various bicycle factions in the region - local governments, bike clubs, advocates, and commuter assistance. I've taken the current
Bicycle Commuter Guide from the RIDE Solutions website (authored by one of our regional planners, Shane Sawyer, with slight edits from myself) and transfered it to a
Wikispaces page.
I'm hoping that real bicycle commuter experts will use the space to make their own comments and suggestions and provide their own insights to the challenge of bicycling in the NewVa region (both for transportation as well as recreation), particularly in regards to defining commute routes and commenting on those the Regional Commission/RIDE Solutions
have already identified.
You can find the Wikispaces page by clicking
here.