With the effects of climate change becoming more evident, many communities are looking at ways of easing their carbon footprint by carpooling, using public transportation or walking and biking more often. In the updated Whitefish Transportation Plan, the City of Whitefish supports developing a more robust transit system.

Reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicle trips is one goal of GoGallatin, a transportation demand management program that is currently being used in Bozeman. Matthew Madsen, Program Manager for GoGallatin made a presentation to the Whitefish City Council at a work session last week.

“Transportation is an issue that all growing western communities are facing and will continue to face. GoGallatin is not the solution to it but it is one tool that we can put in the toolbox,” Madsen said. “The response we’ve had from community members as well as different partner municipalities, businesses and organizations has been really positive.”

Whitefish’s Transportation Plan calls for the city to form partnerships with transportation management organizations and GoGallatin, a trip planning program, is a potential partner to help meet the city’s transportation needs.

The Ride Amigos platform is the software behind both Bozeman’s GoGallatin and Missoula’s Way to Go! Missoula programs. It provides challenges, incentive programs, carpool, vanpool planning options, trip planner and community collaboration. It can also run and manage the challenges and incentive programs.

Madsen said the program works by setting up transportation options for people. Users can plug in a start/finish destination and it gives all the options that are available, including carpooling and transit routes. It also gives estimated times for walking and biking.

“(It is a) community collaboration tool. We work with ski resorts, businesses (and) the community as a whole to provide transportation options,” Madsen said. “We look at reducing single-occupancy vehicle trips and trying to reduce and mitigate some of that congestion.”

The cost of the Ride Amigos platform is a little less than $20,000 per year. With staff time, incentives, marketing and outreach, Bozeman's total operating cost for GoGallatin is nearly $100,000 per year.

Madsen compares the cost to that of a bus line or changes to infrastructure. He added that the way they run the program in Bozeman is labor intensive, and that it could be run for less money.

GoGallatin’s funding comes from a grant from USDOT, MSU, and a handful of other funding partners.

“Funding from the entire community that is really benefiting from the program and the project (is important),” Madsen said.

GoGallatin relies on over a dozen community collaborators, including ski resorts and the cities of Bozeman and Belgrade. They also have over 35 business partners who make the incentive programs possible.

Some examples of incentive programs include a Bike to Work Day in the spring, a campus-specific commuter program and The 12 Days of Bikemas, with prizes each day.

Madsen said the partnerships with the ski resorts are for their staff as they face transportation and parking issues, and for the resort users.

“(We are) encouraging the sustainability component with carpooling and riding the bus to the resort instead of driving your own car and doing incentive programs that include winning free season passes, gift certificates, and other branded merchandise from those resorts,” he said.

A season-long sustainable transportation challenge at Bridger Bowl allows people who carpool or take a bus throughout the ski season to be eligible for prizes including a season pass. The Big Sky One Less Car Program encourages people to carpool, vanpool or take a bus between Bozeman and Big Sky for work at least four days per month. Each time they complete the challenge, they get a $20 gift card from a local business.

Whitefish’s updated Transportation Plan recommends the first step in formalizing a more coordinated and regionally integrated transit system is the development of partnerships for the project.

“Step one is figuring out who would be our best partnership and then creating that memorandum of understanding,” Senior Project Engineer Karin Hilding said. “This could be, possibly, a tool that the partners might be interested in.”

Council ran out of time during the work session but Madsen said he remains available for further questions.