Walking and rolling for the win!
The Shifting Gears challenge wraps up with a celebration of the Travel Awards winners.
On Wednesday afternoon, Shifting Gears celebrated the workplaces and individuals who made the shift to active and sustainable transportation for the trip to work and other errands around town.
The annual Shifting Gears transportation challenge encourages and supports a shift towards walking, biking, taking transit, carpooling, or telecommuting. Workplace teams compete for the coveted Travel Wise Awards, but the challenge is open to all community members who want to use their car less for daily trips.
In 2019, 800 participants logged over 24,000 trips, which equates to approximately 57,000km travelled. Their efforts have saved over 9,600kg of CO2 from entering our air! Participants remark that the challenge allows them to see more of their community, spend more time with family, save on money, and build a little activity into the day.
This year, 33% of our participants were brand new to Shifting Gears. To support these new shifters, GreenUP teamed up with the experts at B!KE to provide new workshops and 1-1 support to help the participants build skills, routines, and a bit of confidence for their shift. New gear and resources were also provided, thanks to the City of Peterborough.
Over 80 workplaces competed in this year’s challenge. Among them, a few are pulling ahead of the pack with huge participation numbers and many trips logged. These workplaces have made the shift and are a shining example to other workplaces, so we have awarded them with In Gear Awards for 2019. Many workplaces are close behind in each category, so we wanted to recognize them, too. They received the Gearing Up Award to honour the big strides they’ve made towards active and sustainable travel.
Winners for the 2019 Shifting Gears Travel Wise awards include:
Micro Category (workplaces with fewer than 10 employees)
In Gear Award – StudioPTBO, The Toy Shop, B!KE
Gearing Up Award – Green Communities Canada, Kawartha World Issues Centre
Small Category (workplaces with between 10 and 25 employees)
In Gear Award – Engage Engineering, LETT Architects, GreenUP
Gearing Up Award – Wild Rock Outfitters, John Howards Society of Peterborough, County of Peterborough (Armour Road)
Medium Category (workplaces with between 25 and 249 employees)
In Gear Award – Peterborough Public Library (Main Branch), Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry @ Trent
Gearing Up Award – Cambium Inc., Peterborough Child and Family Centres, Peterborough Public Health
Large Category (workplaces with over 250 employees)
In Gear Award – Ontario Public Services @ Robinson Place, BWXT Nuclear Energy Canada
Gearing Up Award – Fleming College, Trent University, City of Peterborough
Community Spirit Award
Winner – James Britton, Ontario Public Service – Robinson Place; James has been a workplace coordinator for Shifting Gears for many years, encouraging the shift through the whole building at 300 Water Street. His efforts in the building have led to record participant and trip totals, but outside of the office, James is also a hard-working community advocate for active transportation, lending his time to boards and activities that support Peterborough in becoming a more bike-friendly community. Thank you, James!
We are excited to work with the winners and other interested groups and workplaces over the coming months to showcase their efforts and develop new tools to encourage the shift to active and sustainable transportation. Stay tuned!
