Employees report increased productivity and reduced stress, thanks to The Connector. The free Microsoft bus service is poised for expansion.
By Fred Albert, January 24, 2008

It used to take Bryan Rutberg anywhere from 25 to 45 minutes to drive from his Seattle home to Microsoft’s Redmond campus. Unfortunately, the drive home was much less predictable, occasionally stretching to two hours due to the daily backups on Highway 520. “It drove me crazy and sent my blood pressure skyrocketing,” said Rutberg, director of the Redmond Executive Briefing Center. It got to the point where he stopped drinking water after 2 p.m., for fear of being trapped in traffic when nature called.

Three or four times a week now, Rutberg leaves his Saturn LS2 at home and commutes via The Connector, the free, WiFi-equipped bus service that Microsoft introduced to much fanfare last September. The Connector picks Rutberg up one and a half blocks from his home on Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill and deposits him at the Overlake Transit Center bordering the Microsoft campus, where a shuttle transports him to his office.

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I love Lucidio Mayer Kuhn Filho’s post about his daily bike commute. Lucidio is a Dev on the Microsoft Dynamics team, and judging by this picture, he is also one tough mofo who pedals 22 miles a day round trip.

My favorite part of his little FAQ is this section:

Don’t you get all sweaty?

Of course yes, but here’s one of the advantages of working at Microsoft: at-work showers. The building where I work has locker rooms with showers plus a towel service. So as soon as I get in my office, I can take a hot shower. Also, because I have my own office, I can place my bicycle in my office, or leave it in the garage, where there’s a bicycle rack.

Now, where else could I use my bicycle to work, have showers and towels waiting for me, and colleagues that think it’s perfectly normal for someone to stroll with bicycle clothes plus the bicycle itself at the corridors?

Read the rest of Lucidio’s post.