KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- High gas prices are forcing many of us to find other ways to get to work, and Mast General Store on Gay Street in Downtown Knoxville is helping out by paying employees who don't drive to work.

Mast managers are encouraging employees to walk, bike, or use mass transit, and if they’ll give them cash to do so.

The idea doesn’t stem from high gas prices, but from the emissions that come from gasoline, and an effort to better the environment and our air quality.

Long gone are the days when Mast General Store employee Jim Richards actively rode his bike, at least until now.

"To get back on a bike brings back some of those pleasures we had early in life."

Richards and other employees can now use alternative ways to get to work and get paid for doing it. The company started the new program for one reason.

Manager Michael Johnson says, "To lessen the impact that each of us have on the environment."

The goal is to reduce exhaust emissions and the company's willing to pay 4 dollars a day for people to walk, ride a bike, take mass transit, or pay a little less for other ways.

Johnson says, "If you carpool the person that's riding that not using a vehicle gets two dollars a day."

Richards now makes the one way 11 mile bike most days and finds not only is the trip making money but saving money.

Richards says, "I'm not paying for parking and it's kind of interesting to drive past the pumps as you watch the price accelerate each day."

And with nearly 40 employees, the store's general manager says Johnson is not alone.

Johnson says, "I would say about a third of them in different forms, either biking, walking, you know, car pooling or taking mass transit."

Besides the environment and making a little extra money, Richards has seen some benefits money can't buy....his health. And it's more than his cholesterol count that's gone down.

Richards says, "I'm down, I guess about twenty pounds, roughly according to last year versus this year's physical from the doctor and that's always good."

Johnson says Mast has thirteen stores and 350 employees across the Southeast. So far, he says they’ve paid out more than $6,500, and saved more than 12,000 vehicle miles.