How a maintenance crew turned their commutes into a multimodal adventure

By Hannah Weinberger 

This is your sign to start a commute club with your work friends

The next time you see a group riding scooters or carrying them on light rail, give them a wave: They might be the same people keeping roads safe for all of us to use.

The scooter crew is the talk of Washington State Department of Transportation’s Area 5 maintenance facility on South Spokane Street. For the past three months, six crew members who used to drive to work have turned recent scooter purchases into a daily commute they look forward to taking together, on streets they maintain.

Crew members with our Area 5 Maintenance team show off their scooters and colorful helmets. 

They’ve learned that switching up their travel habits not only makes their commutes easier, more affordable and more fun, but changes their relationship with work and our transportation network in interesting ways.

It started with crew member Lauro. While he used to live a five-minute drive from work, moving to Federal Way had him rethinking his commute. When the new Federal Way light rail station opened, he got more serious about buying a scooter – and when gas prices surged this spring, he took the plunge.

By that point, Julian, Woody, Xavier, Scott and Luis had been talking about buying scooters for as much as a year. “I think all of us were waiting for one person to do it,” Xavier says. The scooter crew started taking shape within days. Two of them joined Lauro in riding to the Federal Way station, taking light rail to SoDo, and arriving at work by way of the 6th Ave. protected bike lane that intersects the shed’s driveway. (They used to find the bike lane annoying as drivers. “The bike lanes are actually pretty good,” Luis says. “We are on board. We want more.”)

Two weeks later, they were four-riders strong. Then six. Then came the coordinated helmets and an action camera to capture the camaraderie.

Between the convenience of connecting with light rail, the affordability, the good company and conversation and not having to sit in traffic, scooter commuting had the crew hooked. Oh, and the scenic route helps. Scott gets Rainier views as he crosses the 520 Bridge to Bellevue by scooter or the new Line 2, while Luis scoots over a hilly trail that connects from a station all the way to his backyard. “You go slower, but it’s a pretty view. And it’s something that I don’t see when I drive, you know?” Luis says.

The crew that scoots together, it turns out, also looks forward to spending more time together. Where they used to leave in a rush to beat traffic on Thursdays and Fridays, they now spend that time hanging out and exploring the area. “I think knowing your coworkers outside of work is extremely important to build those relationships, and I think it creates a healthier work environment,” Scott says.

Operations and maintenance leaders agree. “It’s definitely a morale booster,” says Sage Jones, assistant superintendent for Area 5 maintenance. “When the guys come rolling in like that, when they’re happy… it affects the entire crew.” Sage and Alec Brown, also an assistant superintendent for Area 5 maintenance, are working to make transit and micromobility more accessible for crew members by allowing for some scheduling flexibility: When a crew member wanted to take a train to work but was worried about arriving a few minutes late, managers accommodated them. “We value what they bring as a whole, no matter how they get to work,” Alec says.

Meanwhile, the scooter commutes are taking on a life of their own. The more the crew rides, the more routes they dream of trying.

After noticing a long bike lane south of the maintenance facility, Lauro’s been selling his colleagues on a route that skips Light Rail entirely.

“ One day,” he says, “ we should scooter from [work] all the way to Federal Way.”