Our latest ranking: downtown Portland’s best employers for low-car commuters
I alluded to this in a couple posts earlier this week, but let’s make it official. We’ve just released two awesome resources in conjunction with The Employer Issue:
- A ranking of the downtown Portland employers with the best benefits for low-car commuters. We’re talking free TriMet passes, on-site showers, cash payments for bike or foot commuters … the works.
- A map and sortable list of 536 Portland-area worksites that offer discounted TriMet passes.
So here they are, downtown Portland’s top 11 employers for low-car commuters (I’d list 10, but there’d have to be more, because of ties):
- Energy Trust of Oregon (energy-saving services)
- The local office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (federal environmental regulations)
- The Bonneville Environmental Foundation (an environmental protection foundation)
- Ecos Consulting (utility consulting)
- Elemental Technologies (video software)
- Integral Consulting (science and engineering)
- SERA Architects (architecture and planning)
- The U.S. Geological Survey’s Oregon Water Science Center (water research)
- Multnomah County (courts, cops, etc.)
- SRG Partnership, Inc. (architecture)
- Stoel Rives LLP (business law)
This was a huge project, based on a public-record request from TriMet and a solid week of telephone interviews with 120 downtown businesses. I was only able to do it with the invaluable support of contributor Alexis Grant, who helped design the ranking system and then spent hours helping dig through data and business contact information. (And our print issue, again, features great photography from contributor Michael Schoenholtz.)
I’d also like to acknowledge Steve Hoyt-McBeth of the City of Portland’s Smart Trips Business program, who encouraged us to pursue this project; Susan Drake of the state Department of Environmental Quality, who offered advice early on; and Margeaux Mennesson of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and Tina Lowe and Adriana Britton of TriMet, who promptly and neatly dug up the records we needed for this.
Update 4:21 p.m.: I’ve just added two companies to our leaderboard, based on emails from them: one new company, SERA, which wasn’t in our list from TriMet, and Elemental, which jumped to 3rd place due to Bike Commute Challenge participation that we didn’t have. Keep the additions and corrections coming! This will be an ever-evolving database.
Posted by Michael at 10:29 am April 7th, 2011. Like what you see? Get future posts by email.
