TRANSFORMATION
Bank manager commutes to work on a bike.
David Ruiz has a new morning routine these days.
He rises a little earlier, usually at 6:30 a.m., and has breakfast. Instead of showering and getting ready at the house, he packs a bag. He’s learned how to neatly fold his suits so they don’t wrinkle on his way to work.
By 7:30 a.m., Ruiz leaves his house in Timbergrove. He’s ditched his car — and instead hops on his gray Cannondale bike.
He rides for about a mile in the neighborhood before he picks up the trails in the Heights, heading along Buffalo Bayou toward the University of Houston-Downtown.
“I ride without any music on,” he said. “I just enjoy the sounds. These are beautiful parts of the city that we don’t often see because we’re driving.”
Then Ruiz emerges from the green space, rides along Milam for about six blocks and arrives at work.
“I park the bike in the storage room, shower, change, and I’m ready,” he said.
The whole ride takes about 30 minutes.
The peaceful commute is now what centers Bank of America’s community relations manager each day. Before, road rage and traffic used to add to his stress.
Getting rid of all of that — as well as the cost of gas and parking — was a dream come true. Commuting to work by bicycle became possible for him when his office moved into the new Bank of America Tower downtown.
“Before June, we had 600 colleagues in three different buildings,” he said. “We were looking to consolidate to be more available for clients.”
Developer Skanska opened the doors June 1 to the 35-story office building, with Bank of America as an anchor tenant and namesake, on the block surrounded by Capitol, Rusk, Milam and Travis streets.
“The selling point was a dedicated bicycle entrance and bicycle-storage room,” Ruiz said.
The entrance for bikes allows employees to enter the building without having to compete with cars. Riders take a stairwell to the workout facility, where they have access to showers.
“Before the building opened, I started checking out which route I could take to avoid traffic,” Ruiz said. “So far, so good.”
Growing up in the Rio Grande Valley, Ruiz found bicycling to be his favorite after-school activity, and it became a habit in his life as an adult. He got serious about cycling a few years ago, when he chaired the Park to Port Bike Ride, a 20-mile round trip on the Bayou Greenway trail.
“At the time, I wasn’t even sure if I could make it,” Ruiz recalled. “I started practicing so I could get in shape.”
At the same time, he said, the city was investing in the bike paths along Buffalo Bayou, which was close to his home.
“It was a great coincidence,” he said. “I needed to practice, and Houstonians had made it safer to ride along the bayou.”
He spent his Saturdays riding the trails. Slowly but surely, he increased his mileage. Pretty soon, he was cruising 20 miles in no time.
On those weekend trips, he started to dream about commuting to work by bike. The parks gave him an opportunity to tune in to nature — and he wondered what it would be like to do that every day before heading to the office.
Now, Ruiz makes the trip almost every day of the week. He Ubers if he needs to go to a meeting.
“Despite the extra exertion, I feel energized,” he said. “I’ve had my fix of cardio. I’ve had a fix of nature, too.”
Ruiz takes in the surroundings along the bayou, watching the people on the paths.
“Most of us don’t take advantage of it because of the heat and humidity,” he said. “But I tell people, I don’t feel it, and you won’t either. You create a breeze in the process of bicycling.”
The key is avoiding the hottest times of day — and keeping a bottle of water on the bike, Ruiz said. His previous commute was 20 minutes, so he’s added only 10 minutes for the ride.
Now, Ruiz suggests to co-workers that they try biking to work.
“We’ve got some great parks in Houston, like Buffalo Bayou, that provide additional means of transportation,” he said. “People see me with my bags in the elevator lobby and say they have a bike and have thought about it. I encourage them. I walk them through the benefits.”
Ruiz even helps them decide which trails they might take to work.
“I’m all for it,” he said. “This is my form of commuting now. After years of automatically getting into a car, I switched to automatically putting the bags on my bike and start pedaling. I don’t miss the traffic at all.”
He persuaded Thomas Shide, portfolio-management associate for the bank, at a company event.
“I told him that it’s something I’d think about doing, but I don’t know how to start,” Shide recalled.
He had not ridden his bike in about five years. Ruiz got his attention when he mentioned that the new building had a place to safely park bikes and a facility for showers.
“I would not be able to do it without the shower,” Shide said. “That’s a real game-changer. Our new amenities made it a lot more feasible.”
The Bank of America Tower is preparing to introduce a tenant bikeshare program to further promote bicycle commuting.