With renewed focus evident in the passage of Georgia’s transportation funding bill, the tide is turning in favor of traffic-relieving infrastructure. But traffic relief doesn’t have to wait for new construction. We can act now for immediate change. We need to change daily behaviors, both on an individual and a corporate level. Atlanta’s employers and state agencies are coming together for a solution, and we have more power than we might think.

Large employers have a unique opportunity to improve the communities where they’re located by caring about employees’ daily commutes; specifically, the way those commutes impact the roads and neighborhoods surrounding their worksites. Getting cars off the road is the key to reducing traffic, and ridesharing is the key to getting cars off the road. Georgia DOT’s Georgia Commute Options program incentivizes behavior changes like these for commuters and employers across the metro Atlanta area.

Changing commute behavior offers both immediate solutions and long-term benefits. At HNTB, a 100-year old infrastructure solutions firm, we oversee the implementation of the Georgia Commute Options program across the metro area. As a manager I’ve observed how much alternative-commute choices have improved employees’ morale and helped them save on vehicle costs. It’s shown me that employers can play a crucial role in enabling behavior change that can transform Atlanta’s traffic landscape. When we change our commute patterns — to carpooling or vanpooling, to taking transit when possible, to biking if we’ve got the wheels — we become part of the solution to our region’s gridlock.

How can our region’s worksites better facilitate and incentivize ridesharing? What if employers committed to offering front-row parking spaces to carpoolers? Or let employees deduct transit or vanpool costs from their paychecks pre-tax with the IRS’ Commuter Choice program? (That also comes with a state income tax credit for the employer.) Commuter Choice and Georgia Commute Options present opportunities for private businesses to partner with our federal and state agencies.

There are alternatives we can organize even before our employees get on the road: Alternative work arrangements are often overlooked as viable traffic solutions. They shouldn’t be. Let employees work odd-hour shifts to avoid rush hour. Or allow them to telework.

Workers need management’s buy-in to put solutions like these into practice, so company leaders should take the lead to make them available. If you’re concerned about the effort involved, consider that programs like Georgia Commute Options are set up to help employers navigate Commuter Choice and organize alternative work policies. Georgia Commute Options does it for free.

Georgia DOT through the Georgia Commute Options program has given over 1,500 metro Atlanta employers a leg up, and those companies are better civic citizens as a result. The better we get at addressing traffic in metro Atlanta, the more attractive our region will become to other large businesses. But those steps are up to us.

True, employees ultimately decide how they get to work, whether by train, bus, bike or car. But as employers, we have the power to motivate positive changes in their commute patterns — changes that can have a ripple effect on our region’s economy.