I created a program called the San Diego Bike Commuter Discount Program. It's a very simple program, you simply ride your bike to a business and they give you a discount with no questions asked. No membership card, no secret handshake -- just show up on your bike.

Right now the program has a really solid list of high profile businesses that signed onto this program. Once we're live the businesses on the program will grow exponentially. I'm only allowing local and independent businesses to partake in this.

How does this help cycling? This helps boost your everyday cyclists doing errands. Now people will have a clear motivation to ride their bike to the local restaurant, bar, video shop or whatever. Part of this program is my working with the cities to get more (MUCH MORE) bike racks in front of businesses. South Park is already working hard on it as is North Park. Expect to see bike racks popping up everywhere.

How does this help business? Businesses can see lots of improvements. Now people have more motivated to go to an independent business over the big box business. Say you have a restaurant, nothing draws a crowd like a crowd but in most businesses you can't see all the people inside. Well, a bike rack full of bikes says to passers by this restaurant is popular, hip, young and green. In Portland businesses fight over the right to have bike corral parking because it's proven a winning strategy. Another huge plus is with all the cyclists going to the business you are freeing up loads of parking spots for drivers. A huge problem for businesses in Uptown and Downtown is the lack of car parking spots and i believe this is the best way possible to alleviate this issue. More people means more money.

How can you help? You can help spread the word with the public but I REALLY need you help when it comes to getting businesses on board with the program. For every business that you want a discount see if you can talk them into the program. Tell them all of their competitors are doing this.

I expect this program to be very large as it's proven to be a success at the businesses that have already signed onto the program in faith. These businesses are Alchemy, Sea Rocket, Blind Lady, Pearl Hotel and restaurant, Station Tavern, and Whistle Stop bar. I want to get tons more businesses on board and at that point i will do an all out advertising campaign in papers and on TV as the final push to get non-cyclists up to speed with the program.

Here is the wood sign and logo you want to look for in front of businesses:

Very well written. Thanks for the organization and effort. Time for Plan 'B!'

wow , like this program Sky!!

i'm hoping some of business in north around 56-PQ-carmel mt-poway-mmesa will do the same, that'll be awesome ! :)

Yesterday morning there was a dual web-site thing going on, I'm sure ya'll noticed, I'm just wondering where can I see the list of establishments that offer the discount?

Thank you.

By the way, I am in the Chula Vista area, it's sort of a long shot, but I wonder if some businesses on the "Third Avenue Village" would be interested. I live two minutes away and usually bike to the area or around it, so I could take some of the flyers.

http://www.thirdavenuevillage.com/directory.php?ID=7

Looks great!

Well done sir.
Awesome places as well.

I'm really psyched about this too...awesome work Sky.

evster, work on getting some PB businesses in the program. OB would be good for you too since the ride to OB is fantastic and car free from PB.

I went to the Blind Lady today after the thrift ride and saw the discount program in use: It worked perfectly - great big SDBikeCommuter sign in the window (see picture below), no fuss to prove that we actually rode bikes - just great experience. They also have plenty of bike racks out front.

Hopefully this works well for the merchant, too - there must have been a dozen or more bicycling patrons visiting during the hour or so we were there. I predict this is going to take off - if you have an "in" with a retailer - please ask him to join!

with minimal effort i have about 5 more businesses ready to sign up. by the end of the week they should all be on.

on Wednesday i go to speak in front of the North Park Business Association.

a Chiropractor in Encinitas just signed up. i'll update the site in a few days to reflect the new businesses.

Printed out the flyers today. Hitting up Krakatoa Luigis Pizza and Grants Market today. Do you think we should call out the places we're trying so we don't double up?

Cheers!

Velo Cult:not at all, i think as many people as possible should show up with fliers. try to talk to the owners directly. simply e-mailing them can work too. i think Luigi's and Grants would be very open to this.

Cool. I was talking to Jeff at Blind Lady last weekend and he mentioned that it might be a better sell if you say that only certain things could have the discount, say, something they want to move more of, or something that has a higher profit margin, like sandwiches or something.

Santo's Coffee Shop in North Park just signed up as did Blueprint contracting if you are looking to get some mill work done.

just signed up Alwayz In clothing store. they actually have really good prices to begin with.

Velo Cult:Santo's Coffee Shop in North Park just signed up as did Blueprint contracting if you are looking to get some mill work done.

Yay! I love Santos!!

Sky, you should really turn the discount list into an RSS feed.

It would be much more convenient to have on a mobile phone - easy to bookmark in a browser, easy to put on the home screen of an iPhone, loads much faster, text displays much better, etc.

I know I'd use this list a LOT if I could have one-click access on my iPhone.

For special credit, with a few hours' worth of work, someone could turn it into an iPhone or Android app. (http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/website_magazine_consumer_corner/archive/2008/10/22/turn-your-rss-feed-into-an-iphone-app-in-minutes.aspx)

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Another suggestion - link to the PDF of the flyer on the discount page.

Also, it'd be a good idea to put that photo of the sign in the BLAH window somewhere on that home page as well, next to another with a bike rack full of bikes. That stuff communicates to people on a visceral level far faster than words.

You should also (if you can) say bluntly what it means to a business . 'Get more customers with fewer parking hassles.' Or something like that. Something a harried, busy entrepreneur can process in 1 second or less. Stuff like that really helps to sell people on the idea.

Take those for what they are, it's stuff I've picked up in the business to business work I do at Intuit. It doesn't have to be cheesy, and It won't cheapen it if you do it right.

BTW, very nice work. I passed it on to a couple folks I know in city planning and community development. Hopefully they'll contact you for a writeup.

I'm rolling the one for the business links by hand, just for expediency's sake.
If it really takes off, you'll need to roll them into some sort of content management thing, like WordPress or something. Those have RSS built in now usually.

For a forum, you need something that's built in.
Check out the Vanilla RSS plugins. From my short search, it looks like they have a few:

http://vanillaforums.org/addon/304/feed-publisher
http://vanillaforums.org/addon/419/feedthis
http://vanillaforums.org/addon/73/rss2-feed

Hope that helps!

no need to feel guilty. as they see it they are getting customers and money for virtually nothing. think of all the advertising money that goes into "maybe" getting a customer or two. this program gets them customers that they don't have to spend a penny on. you are also helping them. they honestly want 50 bikes parked in front of their business and you helped them with that.

I've been handing out flyers in North County all week. Hopefully we'll get some places to sign up.

For those that prefer to print or distribute the flyer in PDF format instead of JPG - here it is.

t.e.d:

Njord Noatun:For those that prefer to print or distribute the flyer in PDF format instead of JPG - here it is.

Showed up, but said it was not able to print as there were no pages selected to print. I've never had this problem.

Sweet - I printed up a few to throw in my bag. I'll start handing them out to all my favorite places when I stop by from now on.

t.e.d - it printed ok for me...maybe check your local print/PDF settings?

Hey snowman, just because we do things differently up here (and may be a little slow) doesn't mean you can rag on us like that. :face-devil-grin:

Rebecca's Coffee Shop just signed up. 10% off.