Frequently Asked Questions
Q What's a Smart Trip?
Any trip made by walking, bicycling, sharing a ride or riding the bus that replaces a drive-alone
vehicle trip. Your trip must start or end in Whatcom County. Smart Trips can be recorded by anyone age 14 or older.
Walking and bicycling for recreation are not eligible as Smart Trips. Walking and
bicycling to leisure activities are eligible as Smart Trips.
Ridesharing is defined as two or more licensed drivers sharing a ride to the same
destination or separate destinations along the same path of travel. The rideshare trip must eliminate a drive-alone vehicle trip. Ridesharing among young people 14-18 years old is not eligible as a Smart Trip.
Q How do I participate?
Complete the New User Registration on this website.
Then record your Smart Trips using the Trip Diary on this website. You may record
up to one Smart Trip per day. A Smart Trip must be made on the stated date.
You can enter Smart Trips for the current calendar month and the previous calendar
month using this website.
Paper entry forms are also available for people who do not have internet access.
For information on paper entry forms, contact
us.
City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, WTA, WCOG, and other sponsors are not responsible
for technical failures in entry transmission, or lost, late, misdirected, damaged,
incomplete, illegible, or postage due entries. Entry constitutes permission (except
where prohibited by law) to use the winner's name, hometown, and any text submitted
for the purposes of promotion on behalf of Whatcom Smart Trips.
Q How do I change my password, email address, home address or employer?
Sign into your trips diary as you always have. Click on the link in the lower left hand side of the screen that says “edit my contact info”. Once there you can change any of your personal info on your account including your email address.
Q When will I receive my discount card?
Discount cards are automatically sent out as soon as you have 10 Smart Trips entered
into your trip diary for the year. If you have 10 trips entered for the year and
still haven’t received your card, please call us so we can verify your mailing address.
756-TRIP
Q How do prize drawings work?
$1,000 cash prize drawings will be held quarterly. To qualify, participants must
record at least 5 Smart Trips per month during the previous three months.
$250 cash prize drawings are held monthly. To qualify, participants must record
at least five Smart Trips during the previous month.
Prize drawings are held at the beginning of each month. Paper entry forms
must be received and online trip diaries submitted by the 5th of the month to qualify.
Whatcom Smart Trips staff will contact winners to arrange for prize delivery. If
a prize winner cannot be reached after several reasonable attempts via phone and
email, a new winner will be chosen. If a prize winner is under 18, his/her parents will be contacted and asked for approval before the prize is awarded.
Q How can I quickly enter repeat trips into my trip diary?
If you make the same trip weekly, every weekday, or every single day, you only have
to enter the trip information one time. Then you can easily copy it to other days
during the calendar month using the Auto Fill feature.
Click the calendar on a date you made a Smart Trip and enter the information about
that trip. Check the appropriate Auto Fill box, and then click Submit Trip. You'll
see the trip copied to other days on the calendar. To make adjustments to any of
those days, click on the calendar and edit or delete the day's trip as needed.
Q I had a Smart Trips account a long time ago, should I just start another one?
No. Your old account is still there and you can keep accumulating trips right where you left off. If you can’t remember the email you used to sign up, just give us a call during business hours and we can look it up for you and update it over the phone.
Q What situations qualify for Emergency Ride Home?
- The person requesting the Emergency Ride Home is 18 or older
- You or a family member becomes ill during your work day
- Your supervisor requires you (unexpectedly) to work past your normal quitting time
- Your carpool or vanpool driver experiences any of the above situations
- 8am to 8pm on weekdays
- Up to one brief stop can be made between the worksite and final destination (for
example, in the event a family member needs to be picked up from a school or medical
facility and taken home)
- Emergency Ride Home trips CANNOT be booked for: personal errands, scheduled medical
or other appointments, transit delays, rain or inclement weather, expected or foreseeable
overtime
Q Who sponsors Whatcom Smart Trips?
Whatcom Smart Trips is sponsored by the City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, WTA,
Whatcom Council of Governments, the State of Washington, and grants from Northwest Clean Air Agency, Puget Sound
Energy, ConocoPhillips Ferndale Refinery, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The latter comes from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding.
Q What are the goals of Whatcom Smart Trips?
Whatcom Smart Trips promotes transportation by walking, bicycling, sharing rides,
and riding the bus. These trips:
- Reduce traffic congestion
- Build a more efficient transportation system that provides more mobility and access for less cost
- Provide health benefits to individuals
- Strengthen social connections
- Create a more vibrant local business community
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other types of air and water pollution
Whatcom Smart Trips encourages people to try alternatives to driving alone and rewards
those who are already making Smart Trips. It applies to all trips, including the trip to work, errands, school, or leisure activities.
Q Are there any tax consequences for being a prize winner?
Whatcom Smart Trips will comply with the IRS reporting requirements for prize winners.
According to the 2006 IRS instructions, a Form 1099-MISC is required for any person
receiving over $600 in prizes and awards. Recipients of prizes qualifying for a
1099-MISC must agree to provide the information necessary for the 1099-MISC in order
to receive their prize; they should expect to receive their forms in time to file
their appropriate tax returns.
Q What if I drive a hybrid vehicle?
If there is more than one licensed person in the car for the trip, then it counts as a ridesharing trip. Driving alone in a hybrid vehicle is not an eligible Smart Trip.
Hybrid vehicles provide savings to individual drivers and contribute positively to the community, but not in the same way as walking, bicycling, sharing rides and riding the bus. These latter four forms of travel are promoted by Whatcom Smart Trips for the full range of individual and community benefits that they provide.
Q Why are motorcycles not included as an alternative mode?
If there is more than one licensed person riding the motorcycle, then the trip counts as a ridesharing trip. Riding a motorcycle by oneself is not an eligible Smart Trip.
Motorcycles provide savings to individual riders and contribute positively to the community by consuming much less fossil fuel. Other community benefits are less certain. For example, according to the EPA, current motorcycle engines pollute at a rate 90 times higher per mile than passenger cars or even a large sport utility vehicle. More information on this issue may be found through the EPA's Office of Transportation
and Air Quality.
Walking, bicycling, sharing rides and riding the bus are promoted by Whatcom Smart Trips for the full range of individual and community benefits that they provide.
Q What if I use a scooter?
A power-assisted bicycle qualifies as a bicycle. Trips made by motorized scooters of any type, whether meeting license requirements or not, are considered ridesharing trips when more than one licensed person is riding the scooter. Riding a scooter by oneself is not an eligible Smart Trip for the same reasons described above for motorcycles.
Q What if I use a wheelchair?
Trips made by wheelchair are eligible in the "walking" category, as long
as the trip replaces a drive-alone vehicle trip.
Q Are other types of foot-powered transportation
eligible under the "walking" category?
Yes, as long as it is a method of transportation where the foot is in contact with
the ground, it is eligible in the "walking" category. This includes skateboards,
jogging, rollerblading, and non-motorized scooters, as long as the trip replaces
a drive-alone vehicle trip. It does not include Segways.
Q How did you calculate how much pollution I prevented
and how much money I saved by making Smart Trips?
We used Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Emission Facts (PDF 120K) to calculate the average emissions
and fuel consumption for passenger cars. The document also contains statistics for
SUVs and light trucks. If you drive an SUV or light truck, and would like calculations
based on your personal Smart Trips mileage,
contact us.
We used AAA statistics on average gas prices in Washington State to calculate money
saved. If prices change dramatically, we'll update the price used in our calculation.
Q I'm not interested in prizes or material rewards. Are
there other reasons to record my Smart Trips?
When you record your Smart Trips, you become more aware of your daily transportation
choices and patterns. If you are looking for opportunities to make more Smart Trips,
recording your Smart Trips can help you.
We'll also tell you how many vehicle miles you eliminated and how much air pollution
you've prevented from being emitted. When we add our pollution prevention statistics together, we create an amazing demonstration of how small individual efforts add up to a big change in our community. This reinforces our own choices and encourages others to take part.
Q I'm not seeing all the information on this website.
Should I turn off my pop-up blocker?
This site uses pop-up windows to give you fast, easy self-service features. To use
these features, you may need to disable your pop-up blocker for our website. Rest
assured you will not see any advertisements on our website. Please also note that
most of the information contained in pop-up windows on this site is also included
in the Frequently Asked Questions.
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Q I requested monthly reminders or a new password, but
those emails are getting caught in my spam filter. How can I tell my spam filter
to allow the emails?
See instructions (PDF
14K)
Q I'm having trouble logging in, and I have cookies turned
off. How do I allow cookies for this website?
You may have trouble logging in to our site if you have cookies turned off on your
computer. If you use Internet Explorer and you have cookies turned off, please try
the following. If you use another browser, please contact the
webmaster:
- Open your browser
- Go to the TOOLS menu and choose INTERNET OPTIONS
- In the pop-up, go to the third tab, PRIVACY
- Click on the "Sites" button
- Type in WhatcomSmartTrips.org
- Press "Allow"
- Press OK, then OK again
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