Covidien paying $72,000 for Eco Passes

BOULDER – Health-care product company Covidien Ltd. (NYSE:COV) has joined Boulder’s Eco Pass program, and it will pay $72,144 per year so its 1,336 employees can have bus passes.

The Gunbarrel-based unit of the company signed up recently following an Eco Pass marketing push last fall, said Bob Whitson, director of nonprofit group Boulder East Community Transportation Options, which works with RTD and other transit groups.

In all, 16 new companies joined the transit program recently, representing about 2,000 new workers. The Eco Pass is priced at variable rates, depending on where a company is located and how many employees it has. Covidien paid $54 per employee, said Tracy Foster at Boulder East.

“As a community partner, Covidien is committed to doing its part to protect the environment,” Marta Newhart, the company’s vice president of communications and public affairs said in a statement. “By participating in the Eco Pass program and encouraging alternative transportation, we are proud to be taking an important step toward reducing our global footprint.

Covidien and the other companies also are expected to get back 25 percent of their total Eco Pass program cost for three years as an incentive from the city of Boulder, Whitson said. That’s an $18,000 annual rebate for Covidien.

“For any business in the city … it allows them to try it out for three years without paying it in its entirety,” Whitson said of the rebate.

In terms of bus routes, the new Bolt bus service operated by RTD on Highway 119 gives more options to Longmont to Boulder and Boulder to Longmont riders, Whitson said. The 205 RTD bus route also goes directly through the Gunbarrel neighborhood where Covidien is located, he said.

“A lot of people are working together to make this a good thing for Covidien,” Whitson said.

Alfalfa’s Market is the next big employer expected to sign up for the Eco Pass program, according to Foster, committing to buying 300 passes for its employees in the future. The grocery store is slated to open this spring at the southwest corner of Broadway and Arapahoe Avenue in Boulder.

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