What Rocks? Smart Trips Rocks!

One of the best things about being a bike commuter in Bellingham is Whatcom Smart Trips*. Sign up, track your trips online, and you get nice little gifts for hitting milestones. As you log your trips you can keep track of how many you've logged, total mileage, gas saved, and some other things. It's a great incentive to keep making trips by bike. I'm up to 562 Smart Trips since I joined in June, 2008, having avoided driving 3,641 miles. Some of that was bus trips and walking, but mostly I log bike trips.

Gifts come every 100 trips, and I recall receiving an ice cream cone from Mallard Ice Cream; a Smart Trips tee-shirt; a pastry from La Vie en Rose Bakery & Deli; a video rental from Film Is Truth; and I know I'm forgetting one other. Alas.
And in addition to progress-based incentives, they also have participation incentives: monthly and quarterly cash drawings.
AND certain local businesses offer discounts to holders of the Smart Trips card, which you get after your first ten trips of the year.
AND SOMEtimes they join with other organizations for even bigger incentives. Right now (as in, March 13-26) there's a tie-in with Wheel Options from the Washington State Ridesharing Organization for a whole bunch of prizes, including a trip to New York City.
Whew. That's a lot of incentives!

Smart Trips is staffed through the Whatcom Council of Governments, which also runs EverybodyBike for biking-related classes & events, and the local Safe Routes to School effort. The money comes from a variety of places:

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 and ConocoPhillips Ferndale Refinery.{source}

SmartTrips is an amazing program, and I highly recommend participating. Check them out on Facebook, too.

* I know, Whatcom Smart Trips isn't just about biking -- it covers walking, bussing, and carpooling too. But this IS a bike blog...

UPDATE: The prize I forgot is 6 bagels from The Bagelry. And when I passed another '00 I got a free smoothie from either Robeks or Juice It.