My employer is planning a new manufacturing plant. I work with some of the people designing it. They currently don’t have any plans to hook up to public transit, though there’s a commuter train station 3 miles away. It takes 20min to bike between them or 40min currently to take a bus. The area it’s in is extremely car centric. They’re looking at making an enormous multi level underground parking garage.
How can I encourage them to be more public transit friendly? Maybe a shuttle bus directly from the station to the plant? Looks like that would be about 10min if it runs regularly.
The company doesn’t really care about the environment or the health of the community, so I can’t really give those arguments. The designers said they had looked at shuttle busses before, but it was way too expensive, so they pushed the cost onto the employee.
Could I pitch it as a money save vs building the parking? Or that you’d open up opportunities for more worker applications? Or that it would help traffic jams? Are there any academic papers I could reference about the equilibrium of car driving vs public transit?
How can I argue for public transit in terms the company cares about?
Reduced expenditure on constructing and maintaining parking lots. Include the costs of security / cameras.
Company has better control over when employees come and go.
Employees can start working while on the bus (reading mails, catching up with co-workers, etc.).
PR department can highlight this as a new green policy. They might even be able to convince the local government to bear a part of the costs, or give some other monetary reward.
Now excuse me while I go wash my hands.