As the year rolls into October, the city of Mercer Island encourages residents, workers and students to engage in sustainable travel through the Switch Your Trips WA challenge.

Travelers can make an impact by replacing drive-alone trips with walking, biking, rideshare and transit during the monthlong statewide campaign.

Switch Your Trips WA is organized by the Washington State Ridesharing Organization’s Promotional Advisory Committee with funding coming from local and county governments, Washington State Department of Transportation and corporate sponsors, according to its site.

The message they’re driving home is: “Take the challenge. Earn Rewards. Make Washington healthier.”

“The idea is just to offer some prizes and fun incentives to get people to just consider alternative transportation on their day-to-day,” said Mercer Island’s sustainability program manager Alanna DeRogatis. “It’s not just for commute trips, but this does tie into our Commute Trip Reduction (CTR) efforts and the plan that council adopted earlier this year for 2025 through 2029.”

People can delve into the challenge by logging in at least 10 trips at https://tinyurl.com/5ypzhjb8, and achieving this will put them into a drawing to win cash, an electric bike or other prizes.

Downtown On the Go Executive Director Laura Svancarek, who leads the campaign-shaping promotional advisory committee, noted that its goal is “incentivizing sustainable choices for getting around across Washington.”

“We want as many people as possible to switch their trips and have the chance to win prizes,” she added about a $1,500 e-gift card and more.

DeRogatis learned about the Switch Your Trips WA program about a year ago and then it came to her attention again while attending a regional sustainability meeting over the summer. She then suggested that the city get on board with the campaign for the first time.

“If we get a lot of interest and participation, there’s the opportunity to maybe work with some partners or offer some additional kind of Mercer Island specific prizes in the future,” she said. “I think I’m more excited even for next year with the light rail hopefully also offering another option for Mercer Islanders to sort of switch their trips.”

Regarding Mercer Island’s CTR plan, DeRogatis said the arrival of Riot Games and its plethora of employees in 2024 triggered the city’s need to bring it back into action and meet the state-level requirement. According to city documents, the city first adopted a CTR plan in 2009 but didn’t possess any large worksites until last year.

The Switch Your Trips WA campaign follows on the heels of the city’s first CTR-related initiative: the electric shuttle program that took place in April.

“It all kind of goes towards driving down our greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Mercer Island has a very high rate of EV adoption and electrification of personal vehicles,” said DeRogatis, adding that they also encourage the use of public transit. “The more interest and use we see of these kind of alternative transportation options, the easier it is to get more access as an option for Mercer Islanders.”

DeRogatis noted that the city recently received a Washington State Department of Transportation grant for $31,300 to go toward implementing the first two years of the CTR plan. During those first two years, the city listed its anticipated projects as providing commute and other employee transportation coordinator services to city employees; identifying worksites and employee transportation coordinators; training and providing technical assistance to employee transportation coordinators and more.