Commuter Survey Shows Reed Reversing Progress on Car Trip Reduction Goals
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) requires workplaces in the Portland metro area with over 100 employees to conduct an Employee Commute Options (ECO) survey every other year. The survey is intended to track employers’ progress towards achieving a 10% biennial auto trip reduction goal. The Reed College Institutional Research Office administered the most recent iteration of the ECO survey earlier this semester, and director Mike Tamada provided the Quest with topline results from 2021, 2023, and 2025 in the form reported to DEQ. The survey results paint a complex picture of changes in trip generation at Reed and show the college is backtracking on earlier achievements reducing solo car trips.
A large majority of commutes to and from Reed are on foot, but among Reedies who reach campus via other means, driving is by far the dominant mode of travel. Reed reduced the percentage of solo auto trips from 17.6% in 2021 to 11.3% in 2023, significantly exceeding the goal of a 10% reduction, but then increased it to 16.2% in 2025, erasing most of its earlier progress. Meanwhile, the rate of bike commuting is down by nearly half from 2021, telecommuting is down by about 86.5%, and carpooling is down by 46.8%, but transit is up two-thirds, from 1.5% to 2.5%.
The dominance of walking on the commute survey reflects Reed’s large proportion of on-campus residents and setting in a relatively walkable residential area, including close proximity to the 600-unit Wimbledon Square and Gardens apartment complex. For students, staff, and faculty who live further afield or just want a car-free option for leisure trips, Reed has a system of incentives in place to encourage transit ridership and biking. These include 50-100% subsidies for TriMet monthly passes, a $20/month bicycle commuting reimbursement, 753 bicycle parking spots, and a new e-bike sharing program developed with the Portland Bureau of Transportation as part of its broader micromobility strategy. All of these apply to both students and staff. Reed is also relatively transit-accessible, serviced directly by three bus lines of varying frequency and indirectly by the MAX Orange Line. However, the commuter survey suggests that none of these efforts have been enough to stem the tide of the broader increase in auto trips in Portland and across the country post-COVID-19.
The survey also showed that Reed has largely eliminated work-from-home, which accounted for 528 commutes per week in 2021, 427 in 2023, and just 56 in 2025. Reed’s Human Resources department currently enforces a complex Workplace Flexibility Arrangement that limits work-from-home to “a designated period not to exceed 2 days” for employees meeting certain eligibility criteria who submit a request at least 30 days in advance. A new category on the commute survey that is also governed by HR’s WFA policy is “day off for compressed work week,” accounting for 246 commutes. HR defines a compressed work week as an arrangement where a staff member works the same amount over fewer days, such as four ten-hour workdays instead of five eight-hour workdays.
To better understand the efficacy of Reed’s incentive system, the Quest reached out to the Reed Business Office, which issues discounted or free TriMet monthly passes to Reed community members, to request data on the number of passes issued to students, staff, and faculty over time. Associate Treasurer and Controller Rob Tust said the Business Office does not have readily available statistics on the number and type of passes issued, but that total revenue from pass sales has dropped roughly 30-50% from before COVID-19. This is not necessarily an indication that the number of passes sold has decreased by 30-50%, because an increase in the number of Honored Citizen passes, which are fully subsidized by the college, would also cause a decrease in revenue. However, TriMet’s system-wide ridership is down by about one-third since 2019, suggesting that the Reed pass revenue decrease could be proportional to decreased ridership among Reedies.
Portland takes relatively aggressive steps to support walking, rolling, cycling, and transit ridership compared to other American cities of its size. However, these improvements are often piecemeal and the dominance of car-centric infrastructure largely built in the post-war era continues to force the vast majority of Portland metro area residents to drive. For example, many Reedies may be familiar with the underutilized SE Bybee MAX station next to the Eastmoreland Golf Course. The station is intended to serve Reed, Eastmoreland, and Sellwood-Moreland, but has barely any ridership due to the poor connections and lack of dense development near its location.
Metro, the regional planning agency that governs the Oregon portion of the Portland Metropolitan Area, estimated in 2023 that the motor vehicle network was 99% complete, while other networks were only 50-70% complete. Region-wide mode share statistics published by Metro in late 2023 show that only an estimated 4% of total trips in the Portland metro area are made on transit, 7.4% on foot, and 3.5% on bike, with the other roughly 85% by car. Transit ridership within Portland proper is likely much higher on a per capita basis, but harder to find up-to-date statistics on. From recent estimates, transit probably makes up about 10-15% of trips.
ECO is part of Oregon’s efforts to reduce air pollution from car exhaust, which is why it is administered by DEQ instead of Metro, PBOT, or TriMet. The survey asks each respondent to identify the mode of transportation they travelled the furthest on in their commute each day of the work week, and employers are obligated to achieve a 75% response rate. There are no consequences for failing to meet the 10% biennial solo car trip reduction goal, as long as an institution can demonstrate that it acted in good faith and fully implemented its plans to incentivize alternatives. An employer that fails to meet the target must submit a revised plan within 60 days of the target compliance date. At press time, the Quest was waiting for comment from Sustainability on what these changes might entail.