[TRU Research] New ORCA for All survey? etc.

[Katie Wilson]

Hi All,

Just a reminder to fill out this poll <https://doodle.com/poll/cdvi9gp8shz4nprp> when you have a sec— before the end of the day tomorrow— so we can schedule a meeting.

Re Jim’s question, if anyone wants to try this, that’s cool. However, I think cold-calling employers to ask for this information may be a time-consuming and thankless task, possibly with little success. But I think there are other ways. I met with someone from the Downtown Seattle Association earlier this week, and he said they will try to help us get more information about what transit benefits their members (businesses mainly in the downtown area) offer. We’ll see where that goes.

Also, we’ve gotten a couple of form submissions in the past week from people telling us what transit benefits their employers do or do not offer.  The most recent one is kind of interesting, so I’m pasting it below.

- Katie

Employer: IBI Group

Transportation Benefits: Offers pre-tax option: employees can purchase transit pass products with a payroll deduction

Anything else you want to tell us?: Subsidized ORCA cards have been a source of contention in the office and has been discussed as long as I have been at the firm. There has been a variety of excuses for delaying and suboptimal proposals given (for example, giving a stored value credit, but many of us worked out it would still be cheaper to buy out of pocket the monthly pass). It's somewhat ironic that IBI Group was the firm was the one that ST and KCM hired to implement the ORCA card system and yet doesn't offer subsidized passes to their employees.


> On Jan 15, 2020, at 12:49 PM, Jim Walseth <jim.walseth at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Katie et al,
> On the topic of " a survey specifically for businesses ", I think we would have more complete data on existing transit subsidies if we go to the employers directly. Like, just call them and ask. The data would go a long way to answering " how many employees our legislation would impact ".
> I wonder what it would cost to hire someone to do that. 
> Jim
> 
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 12:12 PM Katie Wilson <katie at transitriders.org <mailto:katie at transitriders.org>> wrote:
> Hey folks,
> 
> Happy new year! 2020 is the year we extend employer-subsidized transit passes to thousands more Seattle workers. Our goal is to pass legislation in the first half of the year.
> 
> TRU’s organizing team will be meeting later this month to develop our organizing plan. But we also need a research & data plan. I’m wondering if we can schedule a meeting soon to discuss what role this group might be play in the campaign. Here’s a doodle poll <https://doodle.com/poll/cdvi9gp8shz4nprp> for evenings the week starting Jan. 27. If you’re interested in this discussion, please fill out the poll by the end of this week. (I chose 5:30-7pm as the meeting time, but we could shift this earlier or later depending on people’s schedules— if you prefer a different start time, maybe make a note of that in the poll.)
> 
> My main idea so far is that we could design an online survey to collect input on the details of the legislation. Something like:
> 
> Here’s our basic proposal: employers with over 500 employees worldwide have to offer a 50% transit subsidy. What do you think of it? (Hate it to love it, scale 1-10 or whatever)
> Here’s ten ways the proposal could get more complicated, what do you think of each one?
> - include an upper tier for employers with 1000+ or 5000+ employees in Seattle, require 75% or 90% or 100% transit subsidy
> - exempt non-profits
> - include v. exclude part-time, temporary/seasonal, and contract employees
> - etc.
> Any other thoughts or ideas? (open-ended)
> 
> And maybe we also do a survey specifically for businesses… not sure if that’s a good idea, but worth considering.
> 
> Maybe there are other projects we could work on too that would be helpful to the campaign at this point. For example, it would be great to get a better sense of how many employees our legislation would impact. It’s possible we could do some back-of-the-napkin calculations and be able to say “this would result in at least X workers being offered better transit benefits” or something like that.
> 
> Katie
> 
> Katie Wilson
> General Secretary
> Transit Riders Union
> https://transitriders.org <https://transitriders.org/>
> 206-781-7204
> 
> The Transit Riders Union is a democratic organization of working and poor people, including students, seniors, and people with disabilities, taking control over our own lives, and building up the power we need to change society for the good of humanity and of the planet. We will fight to preserve, expand, and improve the public transportation system in Seattle and beyond, so that every human being has access to safe, affordable, and reliable public transit.
> 
> 

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