Photo by Rebecca Fisher

That’s right. If you’re a downtown Traverse City employee, you are eligible for one of 50 free Bay Area Transportation Authority passes that will allow you to take unlimited rides on all City Loops and Village Loop routes from July through December 2014.

The catch? You must ride the bus to work at least twice every three weeks and fill out a few surveys and questionnaires throughout the six-month period. It’s that simple.

If you’re a downtown Traverse City employee, you can participate by filling out this form.

The program is called Downtown Direct, a new partnership between the Bay Area Transportation Authority, the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority, and the Michigan Land Use Institute’s Local Motion program.

The program partners are exploring ways they can give downtown employees more options for getting to work and, hopefully, reduce the demand for commuter parking downtown.

The DDA and BATA will use the feedback from the 50 participants to determine ways BATA can improve its service for the 4,000 downtown Traverse City workers.

MLUI’s Local Motion program, which is dedicated to helping to helping companies figure out how they can offer more transportation choices to their employees, is assisting the DDA with surveys, and will help promote transportation choices to downtown employers.