Steering Employers Toward Telework
Some of the chief complainers about the Washington region's notorious traffic jams are business leaders who blame congestion for delayed deliveries, missed meetings and employees sapped of energy from stressful commutes.</br></br>They push for billions of dollars worth of new or widened highways and extended subway service -- projects that have gotten stymied in years of studies, public debate and budget battles.</br></br>But many traffic experts say businesses, federal agencies and other employers could do far more to help reduce traffic backups almost immediately and relatively cheaply by allowing more employees to work from home or from a telework center even one day a week.</br></br>"I think out of all the options we have, it's one of the easiest things we could do" to reduce traffic delays, said Laurie Schintler, a George Mason University assistant professor who researched the potential of telecommuting in the Washington region.</br></br>Even with promising data on time savings, increased productivity and greater accessibility to high-speed Internet from home computers, the idea hasn't taken hold with most employers.