It is good to see that Burlington’s retail establishments are seeing that supporting the biking crowd can perhaps be a beneficial business plan - If we can all reduce our vehicle miles driven - we can improve our air quality, reduce our roadway congestion, become healthier (as we walk and bike more), and hopefully reduce our impact on this earth.
Check out the program here - and encourage your business to sign up! [Bicycle Benefits]
I would encourage you to support these businesses and to all show your support for a City wide business plan that supports local first!
The benefits of bicycling [link to article]
Published: Wednesday, April 11, 2007
By Lauren Ober
Free Press Staff Writer
The benefits of bicycling are many: improved physical fitness, zero carbon emissions and reduction in road congestion. Now, thanks to a new initiative called Bicycle Benefits, discounts on coffee, clothing, shoes and food can be added to the list.Bicycle Benefits began in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and is the brainchild of brothers Ian, 29, and Dillon Klepetar, 21. The program is simple. Local businesses reward cyclists in the form of discounts for riding bicycles instead of driving cars. Discounts are no less than 10 percent and can go up to 25 percent.
As long as cyclists have a Bicycle Benefits sticker on their helmets, they are entitled to the discounts at participating businesses. Having to show the helmet with the sticker is a way of promoting bicycle safety, Dillon Klepetar said.
The program has operated successfully in Saratoga Springs for two years and the younger Klepetar, a junior at St. Michael’s College, recently brought it to Burlington, hoping that people here will be even more receptive to the idea of providing incentives for alternative modes of transportation.
Klepetar, a psychology and political science major, peddled the program to local businesses all winter and has 23 on board, including American Apparel, Dobra Tea, Nectar’s and ECHO science center and aquarium. He sold the idea to the businesses as an opportunity to increase revenue.
“More people are going to go through their doors because they’re a bicycle destination,” Klepetar said. “If bikers know they’ll get a discount, they’re more likely to go.”
In choosing the businesses to approach, Klepetar said he wanted one from “each discipline” to retain the benefits the business might gain from participating. To that end, there is one Thai restaurant, one pizza joint, one shoe store, etc., and there is very little overlap. In Saratoga Springs, about 50 merchants participate in the program.
“They’re happy because they sort of monopolize the environmental community in town,” Klepetar said.
Klepetar is almost messianic in his desire to see fewer cars on the road and more people biking or walking. The program’s mission — to get people out of cars and onto bikes — sums up his personal philosophy. The towheaded student, who wears plastic bags inside his shoes to keep his feet dry while biking in the winter, says people need to start living a sustainable lifestyle.
“I think we need to re-evaluate the convenience and impact of driving a car. Biking is healthy on many different levels,” he said.
Chapin Spencer, executive director of Local Motion, a nonprofit bicycling/pedestrian advocacy organization, applauds the program’s goals, but said its success relies on people’s knowing about the program.
“It needs a fair bit of horsepower to sustain it and market it,” Spencer said. “The challenge is to organize it so it’s viable long-term.”
Spencer said Local Motion is committed to helping Klepetar get Bicycle Benefits off the ground and said that in the future they would like to see a pedestrian element to the program.
Local merchants seem to be on board with the program. American Apparel manager Melissa Claus said she thinks “it’s pretty cool,” and said it’s definitely something the forward-thinking retail company wants to promote. Kathy Bouton, manager of the Peace & Justice Store, said she likes the idea of people’s being rewarded for not using their cars.
“We want to support anything that’s not adding to global warming,” Bouton said.
Klepetar says Burlington is the perfect city to support the Bicycle Benefits program because many people commute year-round on bikes, and if they can be rewarded for using a bicycle, that should be all the more reason to abandon the car and strap on the helmet.
“It’s about making the inconvenient choice because it’s right,” Klepetar said about biking instead of driving. “You have to listen to your environmental conscience.”
Contact Lauren Ober at 660-1868 or lober@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
