Kitsap Transit vanpooler wins plane ride, $2000 resort stay

Kitsap Transit Executive Director John Clauson, left, presents Dilan Rieder with the grand prize for the agency’s vanpool promotion.

Early last year, Dilan Rieder started to get frustrated with his motorcycle commute to Kent. Traveling from Bremerton to his job at Blue Origin every day was both time-consuming and expensive.

Rieder was familiar with Kitsap Transit’s vanpool program from his time at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. In March 2022, he decided to give it a shot.

“It was one of the easiest things I’ve ever done, signing up for (the vanpool program),” Rieder said.

That decision paid off Thursday, when Kitsap Transit awarded Rieder the grand prize for our vanpool promotion: a $2,000 gift card plus a plane ride for two to Rosario’s Resort on Orcas Island. He also received a $500 Visa gift card.

The grand prize package is meant to incentivize vanpool program participation, part of a broader effort to get more cars off the road and reduce harmful CO2 emissions. (The grand prize winner was chosen by random drawing from among Kitsap Transit’s 133 eligible participants.)

“It’s pretty cool, I had no idea,” Rieder said about receiving the surprise grand prize.

Since he joined the vanpool program, Rieder has drastically cut down on his personal vehicle usage. Even more importantly, his vanpool group has saved 2,151 trips off the road, with each member traveling 20,901 miles. Those miles represent 104,505 single-occupancy-vehicle miles saved, preventing 46.59 metric tons of harmful CO2 emissions.

Rieder says vanpooling has saved him and his colleagues a significant amount of money in fuel.

“On top of it all, if you get lucky enough, your employer may have an incentive program where they pay, in my case 75% of (the vanpool fee), so it's dirt cheap to take the vanpool,” Rieder said.

Funding for the vanpool promotion came from a $125,000 state grant, with the goal of increasing vanpool ridership through education, outreach, advertising and incentives. In addition to the grand prize, Kitsap Transit has raffled off several electric bikes, shared vanpool information at employer events, and developed new marketing campaign materials and videos.

Ready to save money on your commute by joining a vanpool? Visit kitsaptransit.com/vanpool or email vanpool@kitsaptransit.com to learn more.