🌱 Greencloud: Sustainable transportation

Hi everyone, welcome to the Greencloud ERG Transportation Discussion for Earth Day 2022.

I'm Michael Moore. I'm a member of the Cloudflare ERG in charge of transportation initiatives.

We'll be covering this in two halves. The first half will go over our transportation benefits in the U.S.

and the second half will be an example from one of our employees about living a car light lifestyle with transit.

For those joining us live today, please submit your questions and review them at the end of each half.

So I'd like to introduce Lisa Gruber, Cloudflare's Benefits Administrator for the U.S.

Great to have you on today, Lisa.

Thank you, Michael. It's great to be here. So Cloudflare has commuter benefits.

What do those entail in the U.S.? So Cloudflare offers a free tax parking benefit and we also offer a transit subsidy.

And how would a U.S. employee sign up for those benefits?

You can sign up in two different ways. You can go through OptumBank.com, or if you're enrolled in the UnitedHealthcare Medical Plan, you can actually enroll when you log into MyUHC.com.

Great. And if I wanted to use those benefits, how would an employee be able to make use of those?

So you can use the benefits to either purchase a prepaid debit card or you can actually load funds onto a transit authority card.

And for the transit subsidy that's included, how much is that?

So Cloudflare will provide $170 a month for employees who opt into the transit.

Wow, that's pretty generous. Yeah. And what services are covered by the transit subsidy?

Yep. So the IRS does have a lot of rules and authorizations around what can be used.

So it can be used for vanpools, transit services like trains, buses, basically all U.S.

public transit operations, like for Amtrak and intercity bus services, depending on where you live and what's available.

And it will show all those options when you go to enroll. Great. And what services wouldn't be covered by this transit subsidy?

So with the transit subsidy, parking, unfortunately, is not covered.

Electric car charging, any personal Uber or Lyft or taxis, any bicycles, the bike shares or e-scooters.

Those are all defined by the IRS, what's eligible.

So we do have to follow those rules.

Okay, fantastic. And in terms of parking, there is a pre-tax element included?

There is. So if you do just park and use the transit or commuter benefit for parking at your workplace, you can opt to use pre-tax funds up to $280 a month to be reimbursed or use a prepaid debit card if the parking garage accepts that debit card.

Fantastic. And what if someone needs more than $170 per month that the transit subsidy covers on a monthly basis?

So you do have the options to choose up to that $280 max that the IRS has put into place.

So you can just do that in whatever amount that you will need over the Cloudflare subsidy.

Those funds will come out of your check pre-tax.

Fantastic. And do these benefits expire if they're not used? They do not.

So any unused funds will continue to roll over month to month. The only time that you would lose any funds in that account is if you left Cloudflare.

Fantastic.

And then how would someone manage the amount that's withdrawn on a monthly basis?

So that they don't make sure there's too much put into those accounts.

Right. So the best option is if you are going to use the transit benefit, which we do recommend since you're getting the subsidy from Cloudflare, is to purchase a monthly transit pass directly through Optum Bank or with UnitedHealthcare.

So that way you know exactly how much your commuter costs are going to be month to month.

That way you don't have to make adjustments every month.

Fantastic. And if someone has any further questions about the program after this live discussion today, who should they reach out to?

Yes. So they can reach out to HR at Cloudflare.com.

And then you can also reach out to UHC Member Services for the commuter program.

And that number is 1-877-462-5039. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Lisa.

And if anyone is watching live currently, we can accept questions in real time.

So please submit them now. And we'll hold for a few minutes to answer those questions for you.

Again, if you have any questions in real time, feel free to submit them now.

All right.

Since it looks like there aren't any viewer questions at this time, thank you so much, Lisa, for joining the call today.

And I hope folks reach out to the HR team if they have any further questions.

All right. Thank you very much for having me.

Have a wonderful day. Thank you. You too. And for the second half, we're joined by Alex Mayorga-Adame, who will be sharing his lifestyle in living car light in Austin, Texas, with Transit.

Hey there, Michael.

Thanks for having me. Hey, how's it going, Alex? It's going awesome. Fantastic.

And you have some photos to share with us today along with your presentation?

I do. Let me see if I can go ahead and share this screen over here. Fantastic.

Let me share a little bit of my Firefox here. Let me know if you see it, okay?

Yes, I can see. What are we looking at here? So we're looking at where my... Well, this is not where my transit journey started.

I was born in Zacatecas, Mexico, and then I live...

This picture specifically is from Monterrey, Mexico, where I've lived for about 13, 14 years.

I'm still kind of in between cities trying to move the family over to Austin.

But I've been living in Austin, as you say, a car-free lifestyle since 2018 when I joined Cloudflare.

But I selected some pictures because you got me thinking about, like, show what it looks like.

So here is, like, people in Austin kind of complain about the transit system, but I just wanted to show this particular picture is a broken down bus in Monterrey, Mexico.

The people you see there is not lining up to get into the bus. It's more like you see there's a police officer, too, because basically the bus broken down completely there.

So they are waiting for another bus and, you know, the whole ordeal.

I think that happened to me once in Austin, too. But in this case, it is not pictured, but there was a lot of smoke coming out of the back of the bus.

But what happened in Austin for me is apparently the door that protects the engine outside was, like, flipping on and off or something.

I was very impressed when that happened because there was, like, a maintenance crew that actually caught up with the bus.

So we stayed on the bus. We didn't have to, like, transfer to a different bus like in this situation.

So for people that kind of complain about transit in Austin, they have it really easy, right?

So that's what I wanted to share with this picture.

So, yeah, that's my story. I've never owned any vehicle as we were preparing for this.

You made me realize that I don't even have a bike. I just basically walk everywhere.

Or I actually have a ton of bikes because with the benefits that Lisa described, I can actually get any of the electric or regular bikes that the transportation authority in Austin has available.

Yeah, it's included with a bus.

The monthly bus pass does have a tier that includes a bicycle subscription, and that's fairly unusual in the US.

Yeah, you're right. I'm maximizing this one.

Yeah, but let me try and go to the next picture. So why I do this, right?

I do this because of this tiny little bus right there here in the picture.

That guy in the middle right there, he is my son, Alec. And he's right now nine years old.

And, like, the whole idea is to live, you know, a better world for him.

So if by taking a little extra time riding the bus, I will do it, right? So that is the reason why I made that decision.

It was also a financial one, if you will.

When I came to Monterey coming from Zacatecas, I was already like during college years or high school, I was already moving by bus most of the times.

And then I also very much or either not by planning, but by sheer luck, I end up like being close to the locations I need to be.

So I will walk to college a lot once I discover that the bus was kind of like doing a windy road that I can potentially walk in about the same time, if not less.

So that was that. Then I moved to Monterey and I ended up again, like maybe half a mile from the bus stop.

And by taking one bus, I was just across the street from my office at the time.

So that was also convenient.

But, you know, in Mexico, the car is kind of a status symbol more than anything.

Our cities are very congested. So in reality, that idea of getting fast everywhere that they sell you in the car commercial is just you sitting on traffic for half an hour, 45 minutes or hours on end.

So I figure I'd rather read a book or listen to a podcast or do something different at that time.

So that was kind of at the moment I decided to shop for cars.

I was only able to maybe afford a very tiny one.

So I decided not to go for that. And at the time, I also met my lovely now wife, then fiance, and she had a small car.

So we managed with that and we have managed with that just the one car since then.

And then I had to move to Austin and everybody told me, you are going to need a car, right?

Because you cannot survive in Austin without a car.

So then I kind of took it like as a personal challenge, if you will, accepted the challenge and just never got the car or not thus far.

I think I'm just going to die carless for the entire time. So then like this is a picture when I was doing, I believe, my orientation at Cloudflare, if not the Cloudflare retreat.

And I was very pleasantly surprised that Cloudflare was actually doing advertisement on the transit lines of San Francisco.

So I believe I took this picture from like a restaurant close to the office.

I believe this is Second Street or somewhere.

I mean, San Francisco is not my city, so I'm not going to recognize that street, but maybe familiar for people in San Francisco.

And at the time, Cloudflare was running this advertisement of being faster and safer, which I think ties up very nicely with the bus.

Because in a way, when you're driving, even though you might be a very good driver, you're not a professional one, right?

And when you are riding the bus, that person is qualified and trained to get you safely from point A to point B.

So I also see it like as a benefit on being more secure, if you will.

And you also get faster, right? Because the rationale I use or through my life, I also kind of became a pedestrian activist, like trying to advocate for better walking and safer walking for everybody.

Because everybody is a pedestrian.

Even if you own a car, you have to walk to your car, you know?

And I was pretty shocked when I moved to the U.S. I figured like, oh, everybody is going to have like these beautiful sidewalks that we see here in San Francisco.

And then I came to Austin and noticed that, no, there are missing sidewalks for me everywhere.

So I guess a tiny call to action there is write to your representatives.

I don't really know the politics of Texas that well yet, but do write to the city if you're seeing a missing sidewalks and things like that.

Fantastic. And we do have an upcoming, for those in Austin, we do have an upcoming election for many city council seats.

And there are a number of pro-pedestrian and pro-transit folks running for those positions.

So I highly recommend folks take a look there. We did get a live question in from one person.

What is your number one pain point for living a car-free lifestyle?

And how do you work around it? Yeah, the number one pain point for me is, well, I happen to live right now in an area that has CapMetro pickup, which is an amazing service.

So what did you do before pickup was available in terms of transit in that area?

I will just basically, so I live with a roommate right now.

So she will drive me around most times. And I try to be like a very homebody type person anyway.

So I hardly ever go anywhere if it's not really necessary.

So with my previous roommate, we will commute together, basically carpooling with him at the time.

And then kind of COVID removed the need for going to the office that often.

So that was a blessing at the time. But the problem with CapMetro pickup in my area is basically you only exist from seven in the morning to seven in the evening on weekdays.

And could you describe the pickup service for those who may not be familiar in Austin?

Sure. I think I had this somewhere.

So CapMetro pickup is a service on which you have vehicles on demand.

It's these tiny buses. It's not the long ones. So it kind of works like Uber where you have a mobile app and you can order it, but it's run by the bus system here.

Exactly right. That's exactly right. You get an app that is available for both Android and iOS.

And basically you can request service on any of these areas.

But this is the issue I was mentioning, right? On most areas, it's only available on weekdays.

So if you have any weekend plans, you have to resort maybe to another car sharing like Lyft or Uber or something like that.

That is what I generally end up doing.

That is, again, kind of cheating on the part of being car light because...

Well, that's why it's car light. You have to make it work for the lifestyle that you're still doing much more than most people in terms of trying to utilize transit and utilize different things.

I've seen a number of different reports that say even if folks took transit one day a week for their daily activities or commute, you would see huge decreases in the amount of carbon released.

Yes, exactly right. And yeah, no, CapMetro pickup aside from that is great.

And like I said, I'm in this area now, but there's areas in Lago Vista, Leander, Exposition.

Many other locations in Pflugerville as well. So just what I recommend, this is like super convenient because you can just request it and they show up right at where you are at as long as you are in the coverage area and can take you and drop you off exactly where you need to be.

So it's super convenient. It's like door to door transit for most folks.

And then from there, you're able to transfer if you're going further on a bus line or rail line.

Exactly right. Like say when I need to go to the office in Austin, what I do is take one of these to the park and ride in Maynard and then take the bus.

So next up, and I kind of became a fan of all this.

So these are some trips that I've made since where I pictured just transit.

You know, you have the legendary double-deckers in London. I ended up taking this picture.

It's funny because it's from a bus to another bus. And you know, kind of what I noticed is like if you go to a big city that is very touristy, generally the tourists are going to prefer taking these bus tours instead of like renting a car and driving around.

And I believe the reason being like you can actually enjoy a city better when you are not worried about crashing into the next car or you know, a pedestrian running in front of your car or all that stress.

So I kind of selected those pictures to reflect on that.

I happen to also collect transit cards or transit passes from different regions that I visit.

I tend to misplace them after I get them.

But for me, it's like, okay, I got the one from Argentina.

I got the one from France or Paris, England. I have a couple of those too somewhere.

So there's that. So they make nice souvenirs as well as being useful during your trip.

They are, yeah, very useful and cheap souvenirs once you consider that you basically got a service on top of the souvenir, right?

This is a funny picture I got.

Like I was waiting for the bus in Austin one day and these little guys were waiting for the bus next to me.

And that was funny because like in this particular bus stuff, I don't think I ever got any companions that were waiting for the bus.

But I had a very good experience with the 19 route in Austin. Mostly running on time all the time.

Hardly ever either not running or being delayed or anything like that.

So kudos to CapMetro for that. And for those who may be watching on a small screen or mobile, those were two deer in the previous photo.

Yeah, thanks for that, Michael.

I also have the map because this is something I appreciate coming from Mexico.

There are very few cities that have like actual maps and designated stops.

You try to hail the bus wherever you are at and hope that they stop and pick you up.

But that is this one. In Austin, you have the maps, you have designated stops, you have the app from CapMetro itself.

So that is great. This is my bus stop on a foggy morning going into the office.

And something I would like to advise here, if you are going to experience transit or just if you want to be informed, CapMetro has this number that you can text basically with the word CapMetro and the route number that you have.

I'm still subscribed to my older routes and I kind of enjoy, you know, getting the updates.

So if you text 468311 with CapMetro as base and the number of the route, you are going to get like timely updates from there.

Otherwise, you can visit the website at CapMetro.org slash MetroAlerts and subscribe from there.

I found it easier to just like text the number and get subscribed.

For those who may not be in the Austin area, most transit agencies will provide these types of updates or they'll use third-party services like the transit app, either their own custom app or other apps that are available on any app store.

Yeah, I have a final photo here on, this was like very cool where they had it in CapMetro.

They had like this digital ink displays that basically updated, but I found it funny when it broke.

I'm not making them just since because they generally work, but you know, I'm an engineer, so I find bugs and stuff.

So if you ever face this issue, you can either use that app from CapMetro itself.

Another one that I really enjoy using and they don't pay me anything.

This is just from the bottom of my heart. I found that transit app has a very, very good app for mobility in general.

I think I discovered this one during a trip to Europe because this not only coordinates or deals with the buses, right?

This can connect you as you can see here on the screenshots that they have.

It shows you where there are bikes or scooters available and you can coordinate.

This is, I really like it because it's multi-modal. So basically it tells you if you need to walk, if you get the walking instructions as well, if you need to make a combination or go into a different route, you can also do that.

And the app as they advertise it here is really pretty and it gives you like an exact plan of when you have to leave, how long do you need to walk, which buses do you need to do or combine, etc.

And it's also giving you progress. I really like that during COVID times, they also query you or ask you how busy the bus was.

So for people that were sensitive to that, they can decide to wait for another bus if one is too crowded.

And you can also, as it says, combine with car sharing or bike sharing or scooters or anything like that.

So if you want to use transit or experience this, you can use this one.

Another one I use is Mobit as well. This one is more like planning the trip beforehand, but the app also gives you like live updates or where your bus is at, etc, etc.

And this map kind of shows what will be my commute.

It's normally 77 minutes.

But if you were driving, you will probably make the same amount of time and just be sitting there driving, right?

What I particularly enjoy about not driving is the fact that I can use my time either for leisure or work or other activities, or just maybe take an extra nap, right, on the way to the office.

So that's my story, Michael. I hope it is useful to somebody. And again, encourage you to try riding transit, as you say, maybe once a week.

Fantastic. And we do have another question that just came in.

They're asking, what is your favorite transit system that you've ever been on?

Wow, that's a great question. I have to go with New York City.

The New York City system, albeit it is very old, if you will, and not very well maintained, some people claim.

For me, when I went to New York City, it was like this is that little metro card you get is like a superpower because you can basically disappear in any corner and appear in any other corner of the city.

So I have to give it to New York. Definitely New York City. Amazing. You might end up in sketchy stations from here and there.

I have to recognize that I did get lost in the system there at some point and I was like, oh, where am I?

But like it's easy to navigate, it's very well, like the maps are everywhere.

Yeah, I have to have to give it to that one.

I really loved in New York the express versus the local train.

So you could just easily transfer between the two on the same line and, you know, take a local train one stop and then hop on the express and it's right there.

Yeah, you're right, you're right, yeah. Another one I enjoyed was in Barcelona, I think.

Barcelona, I have to admit, really is the top of the walkable city.

So you really don't even need the buses, but they are there and they're great.

And so if I have to give it to them, that will be maybe a tie between Barcelona and New York.

Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Alex, for joining us today.

And thank you all for joining us live and for anyone who's following up with this at a later time with the recording.

I want to thank everyone for joining, as well as if anyone has further questions or is interested in joining the Green Cloud ERG, we do have weekly meetings and you can inquire through our chat and we have a Green Cloud ERG chat on Google or you can reach out to me directly at Michael Moore and I'm happy to answer your questions via the Google chat there as well.

So thank you so much and I hope everyone has a wonderful day. And this concludes our segment.

So thank you so much for joining us.

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