City of Canning Staff Got Pumped at the Pop Up Parklet

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the coffee was brewing, and the eBikes were charged up at Wednesday's World Car Free Day Pop Up event for staff at City of Canning. More than 60 staff ventured out of their offices to attend the pop up which ran between 8:30am and 10:30am outside the City of Canning Administration Building in Cannington. The event was funded by a $250 Department of Transport and Westcycle Bike Month Microgrant.

Five car spaces were reclaimed for the parklet which was filled with tables and chairs from Canning's Community Trailer, the Pedaling Beans coffee cart and trees and plants provided by the City Greening Team.

We're not sure if it was the lack of coffee shops in the vicinity of the Administration Building, the eBikes, or the leafy vibes of the parklet but the great turn out and lure of free coffee if you voted on active travel priorities proved a popular incentive for staff! Staff provided feedback on the pin up board which displayed the question 'How do we encourage more staff to walk, ride or catch public transport to work at the City of Canning?.'

Staff were given three sticky dots and asked to vote on their top 3 ideas that were based on common feedback from the Your Move Canning Workplace Survey. Staff could select from incentive schemes, corporate riding days, a carpooling register, a monthly active travel breakfast, active travel time allowance and one to one bike coaching.

The most popular options were a monthly active travel breakfast where all staff that commute to work using active or public transport on the day would get a free breakfast. The other popular option was an active travel time allowance which provides a flexible approach to staff start times to allow for staff to get changed/showered on arrival.

A submission box was also provided for staff to suggest other ideas to improve active travel at the City.

The eBikes proved popular with staff taking turns to take the bikes for a spin around the car park or down around the Admin grounds. It was great to see lots of staff who hadn't been for a ride in years building their confidence on a bike again through the encouragement of other staff and Department of Transport's ever encouraging Sam!

Prior to the event, a Your Move Canning Travel Survey was open for the last month, with 57 staff responding to the survey.

Staff who entered the survey went into the draw to win a $100 IGA voucher or 1 of 3 coffee vouchers at Canning River Cafe. In addition to the survey template provided as a resource on the Your Move platform, we added a couple of questions to see if staff were interested in joining a Your Move Project Working at the City. The Working Group aims to embed active travel into Canning projects and get input from different teams on how to increase staff and community members using more active travel methods.

The survey found that the majority of staff drive their car (92%) to work each day, 6% ride their bike, 1% catch public transport and 1% walk to work. The main reasons selected by staff for the high car usage was that driving was the quickest option, staff needed their car during the day for work trips and for commitments like training outside of work.

The parklet and free coffee were a wheely good way to engage and start conversations with staff about active travel at the City. Next steps will be to use the survey data and feedback from the event to inform the development of a Your Move Workplace Strategy to continue staff engagement around active travel. We are also looking to provide tailored eBike rides for staff to help build their confidence to use the City eBikes, ride between different City of Canning workplaces, and find the best route.

Hopefully others can ‘re-cycle’ some of the ideas from our parklet event!