Rule 9410

What is Rule 9410:

Recently the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a government agency charged with protecting California's environment in Sacramento, fined the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District (SJVAPCD) 29 million dollars for being out of compliance with air pollution standards. To begin solving our valley's air pollution problems the SJVAPCD implemented a series of strategies to reduce pollutants in the valley. From this brainstorming Rule 9410 was created. The main goal of this program is too reduce work commutes in single occupant vehicles and replace them with active transportation (biking, walking, carpooling, etc). Designed to bring companies with 100 or more employees in compliance with its regulations, the program is designed with a series of phases centered around a point scale. The point system is designed for companies to pick a series of measures to execute for its respective phase. All of these measures focus on addressing the problems associated with single occupancy vehicle trips to work and incentivizes employees to get out of their cars and into other forms of transportation.

eTrip:

To monitor Rule 9410 the Air Districts plans for companies to develop eTrip Plans to show measures companies will perform in order to comply with each phase. The acronym eTrip stands for employee trip reduction implementation plan. These measures can be broken down in the following way:

Phase I – Marketing and Program Support Strategies: The measures in the first year focus on educating employees on the benefits of active transportation. This phase also givers points for programs like vanpool programs, internal guaranteed ride homes, rideshare matching. Educational programs include focus groups, event fairs, employee presentations, etc. This phases strategies focus on reducing the need for employee's personal automobiles to be on site while educating them on the financial and health benefits of active transportation.

Phase II – Services and Facilities Strategies: The second year of Rule 9410 will focus on changes to the worksites infrastructure to promote active transportation. Measures in this phase include adding bicycle parking, building shower facilities, and on-site food services. These measures serve to reduce employee trips during the day and encourage employees to use active transportation for work commutes.

Phase III – Transportation, Alternative Schedule, and Incentives: This phase allows companies flexibility in their compliance by either already successfully affecting your employee base commute habits, or by implementing business strategies such as financial incentives and discounted public transit fares to encourage employees to use active transportation. Financial incentives could include tax commute benefits, employer financial incentives, reduced rideshare costs, money provided to people who bike to work.

By selecting enough measures to meet the programs criteria the Air District hopes companies will be able to provide enough education, programs, and facilities to get employees out of their single occupancy vehicles into active forms of transportation. At the beginning of each year a company will submit their eTrip on September 1st. Below is the points required for each company to comply with Rule 9410.

What does this mean for:

Employers

Companies with a hundred or more employees must comply with this rule. If you choose not to comply with this rule there could be consequences such as fines. This will be done at the discretion of the Air District Board. However this program incentivizes employers with the opportunity to create a healthy employee base through encouraging alternative forms of transportation.

For companies with hundred employees this rule will not apply to you. However we believe it is important for everyone to play their part in getting employees into other forms of transportation. We would like to encourage you to browse around and look into ways to help your company create a healthy, productive employee base.

Employees

If you work for an employer with a hundred or more employees your company will be required to comply with Rule 9410. This means your employer will be providing you a variety of information on how you can use other forms of transportation to get to work. This information will help you understand the fiscal and health benefits of using alternative forms of transportation. We would encourage you to take part in this rule for numerous reasons:

There are numerous financial benefits such as saved money on gas, gym membership, tax commuter benefits
Improved health
More productivity at work. Studies show employees who bike to work are healthier, more productive, more alert, and take less sick leave
Employees will help there company come in compliance with the Air District and help them potentially avoid being fined for not meeting regulations.

The Community

Anyone living in Kern County should support this program because it focuses on helping our two biggest problems: air quality and health. With 29 percent obesity in the county and the worst air quality in the nation outside of the LA valley it is more important now than ever before for us to understand the benefits of using alternative forms of transportation. This rule will be one way the district addresses one of our largest sectors which causes pollution: the automobile.

What Bike Bakersfield is planning to do:

We at Bike Bakersfield will be working alongside the Air District and other distinguished company's such as Chevron to not only comply with Rule 9410, but to surpass expectations and create an eTrip Plan which will effectively create an active transportation culture with our clients employee base. We are using our expertise to effectively identify reasons why people don't use alternative forms of transportation, educate individuals on how to efficiently commute by bike and other forms of transportation, assist people in their efforts, and help employers find effective retrofits to encourage alternative forms of transportation.

What Services will Bike Bakersfield Provide:

On-Site Data Collection: Changing something as engrained as our transportation habits starts with understanding why we are drawn to our initial transportation habits and what is keeping us from changing. Bike Bakersfield will begin the process with an initial study to capture employees thoughts on active transportation and assess, based on the information collected, what needs to be done to change a companies transportation culture.

Personal Communication: Bike Bakersfield understands to make effective changes in our transportation habits it takes a one-on-one mentality. Throughout the process we plan to distribute information through the broadest channels to reach the largest audience while never losing the personal connection with the employees we are working with.

Program Management: Informational meetings, newsletters, rideshare programs, rideshare bulletins. Bike Bakersfield is committed to running afore mentioned events. We will conduct these programs to make sure they are handled in a professional manner and beneficial to our client's employees.

Infrastructure Assessment: As bicycle commuters our team understands the important of providing proper facilities to make it feasible to bike to work. By taking our education and personal experience we will help our clients analyze their worksites current capacity to service its employees and help them identify ways to adapt their facilities to encourage cycling and other active transportation by their employees.