I walk to work. I walk down a very busy road. I would say that 95% of cars have only one person.
I tried to start a carpooling initiative at work. I only got 3 people.The problem is it is shift work and people live all over the place.
Is that the reason why carpooling is not happening ?
I do not think people really care about the environment until they actually do something about it. There are many coffee-table environmentalists. They have 3 family cars but they have a coffee table book about the Amazon rain forest.
Alive and well in Northern California, thanks to the ubiquitous carpool lanes. Do you have any?
I don’t live down yonder, but it’s the same here in the States, at least out West where I live.
From my POV, shift work has nothing to do with it,
I couldn’t carpool if I wanted, because I drive a work truck to various jobsites every day, but people I know who could, wouldn’t. It comes down to basically “Why should I, don’t need too, pain in the butt.” “The Environment” is something everybody likes to talk good about, but won’t change their driving habits for, at least not now.
Out here in the West, many cities are so spread out, cars are king, and mass transit, carpooling, and other transportation alternatives just aren’t embraced by the people.
Maybe if gas was twenty dollars a gallon…
It comes down to no real incentive to do it.
I suspect many Aussies feel the same way.
I take your point Voyager, but I think that is more like two dudes from the same neighborhood going to work together, rather than an organized group from the office of 10 people, where one dude picks up several others before going to work. Are your carpool lanes two or three people minimum.
I could be wrong. Back when I lived in Houston, it was two per car. I guess I think of true carpooling as more than two people. Does the manequin count? 
It does very well in Northern Virginia, thanks to an innovation called slugging. Thanks to that, you’re not married to someone else’s schedule.
The only downside is you have to ride with a stranger, but the HOV-3 system helps minimize risk there as well.
Since, IIRC, somewhere over 90% of cars on the road at any given time have no passengers other than the driver, widespread two-person carpools would get a hell of a lot of cars off the road. And since that’s the point, ISTM it’s worthwhile to call two people a carpool with respect to carpool lanes, spaces, etc.
I hate carpooling. And I do what I can otherwise car-wise; I drive a car wit hvery good gas mileage, don’t drive it more than I have to, etc. But honestly, those 20 minutes or so to work and back are my quiet reflection time. In the past when I’ve had no car and had to share with someone I’ve noticed a definite increase in my stress levels and irritation levels.
FTR, I do take the bus when I can, but I live far enough away from work and the public transportation out of the city here is not so good.
So there’s my reason. I didn’t say it was a good one, but there it stands.
As Mr. Moto mentions, it is pretty common here in Northern Virginia. We don’t just have HOV lanes (either 2 or 3 passengers required), at least one of the biggest highways in the area (I-66) is HOV only for some of the day.
Each day I walk past a pick up point for people looking for a ride and cars looking for a passenger. I understand the unwritten rule is that no talking from the passenger is allowed, which avoids forced conversation I suppose.
Looking back, that might be the “slugging” earlier mentioned.
I’ve done it but hated it. You can’t go shopping or errands on the way to or from work. You have to make conversation every single day with someone that starts out a little annoying and by week three you want to stick a pen in their neck.
I’m the same as you Anaamika. I enjoy the time I have to myself. Also, I often make side trips on my way home from work. Carpooling would be a giant PITA for me. It may actually make me make extra trips into town. Or I would be a real pain, and have to opt out about every other day. Not worth the aggravation.
For the first 12 miles of our trip into town my Wife and I take the same route. Then I continue on about another 12 miles to the next town. I guess we could ‘carpool’, but we work very different hours and do different things before and after work. It just wouldn’t work out.
We do car pool if we are doing something together in town after work, but that’s about it.
Well, here’s how it works in Northern Virginia.
You drive to a commuter lot, and pick up a stranger or two. That enables you to use the HOV lanes, and they get a free ride to work. You generally drop them off at a streetcorner close to where you are going.
At the end of the day, you drive by certain designated streetcorners where you know people will be hanging out waiting for rides and drive them back to the commuter lot and their own car.
Like I said before, they’re strangers meeting you at that time, so you don’t have to alter your schedule at all, which is always the biggest hassle with carpooling. There is also an ethic that you don’t talk unless the driver wants to - and in fact, most passengers listen to iPods, read or nap.
This has been going on for more than twenty years with a very good safety record. Many women use it with no fear.
Most are two, but 80 and I think the Bay Bridge are 3. Down where I drive it is 2.
My father carpooled forever, but that was because he had a scarce UN parking pass, and there were people from our neighborhood who worked in the UN who were happy to carpool for the parking. That was a very much 9 - 5 place, which made it easier. I know very few people in high tech companies who carpool (assuming they’re not married to each other.) The few who did had issues with refusing to go to late meetings because of ride committments.
I assume most of those people are going into DC, right? I think the roads into San Francisco have similar lots. Down here in the valley things are so spread out that it doesn’t work well. I’ve also never heard of any issues with it.
As for me, I don’t think I’d like to carpool, but in a few months I might be working from home, so I can feel doubly virtuous.
How does one verify that a car or rider is actually using this program? Is there some sort of sticker on the window? I can imagine a very bad scenario in which a car pulls up and the driver says, “Need a ride?” to the woman standing on the sidewalk. She, thinking he must be part of the carpooling program, gets inside.
Not that a sticker provides any sort of security.
Some people use a sign, others just roll down the window and hash out where they are going. This has evolved to the point that the Pentagon parking lot has marked lanes and signs telling people where to line up.
The fact that a lot of people are still wearing their government badge helps with security. You usually can trust an Air Force major or a GS-13. Also, it is an HOV-3 system on 95/395, and the likelihood of landing with two lunatics in a car are far more remote than teaming up with just one.
Of course, rides can be refused if the fear factor is too high. There is also an unspoken ethic that a lone woman won’t be left at the streetcorner by herself - she’ll be allowed into a car even if a man was ahead of her in line.
It is in many ways an admirable system. It is totally organic, and the only thing government has done for it is to encourage it through benign neglect.
Well, that and legally designating and enforcing the HOV lanes that motivate drivers to create the system in the first place, right?
I tried carpooling but found that it turned my ~2 hour round trip a day commute to 3-1/2 to 4, added to the inconveniences already stated regarding the ability to do errands and whatnot. I’d take the Metrolink in if I could–even though it would essentially double my commute time) but there’s really no efficient and reliable way to get from the terminus to my office, even though it’s only 3 or 4 miles away. So I drive by myself most of the time, simultaneously fighting against and contributing to highway congestion.
Being a “real” environmentalist isn’t just hard, it’s actually pretty much impossible for many people in any kind of mainstream job. I mean, you can eschew the Ford Extravigation SUV and landscape the lawn rather than water it, but most people aren’t able to ride a recumbent bike to the grocery store to shop for the family or reduce their electrical energy usage to one 10W fluorescent bulb per person. A significant part of reducing the load on the environment involves building appliances and systems which permit the same level of comfort and capability at a reduced demand upon and hazard to the environment.
Carpooling sucks. We need those little pod car things out of Minority Report that zip you right up to your hypermodern arcology apartment. Either that, or matter transporters.
Stranger
I couldn’t if I wanted to and I would never want to. I have a 35 mile commute each way, I have to pick up the kids at the end of the day in another direction, and I need to be able to stay at work late when the need arises. I am frankly amazed that anyone could pull it off. What about errands and how do you find two people that have a schedule that is that fixed? What happens when the driver gets sick or goes on vacation? How do you explain to your boss that you are late yet again because the shortest of buses fucked you over yet again?
I take the carpool every single day going from El Cerrito to downtown SF. Casual carpooling has been going on around here for at least 25 years.
Bay Bridge into SF is 3 people for the carpool lane. No toll, no waiting at the toll plaza which has very long backups every day.
Works because everyone is going to a pretty small downtown spot (SF is only 7x7 miles to begin with, and downtown is well served by buses, BART [subway] and trolley lines). Carpooling back to your home is a little harder since people are going to a wide variety of locations but there are places downtown where the city put up signs for the various areas.
Many locales have “casual carpool line forms here” signs so you know where to wait.
I’ve never had a problem. I know that many women will not get into a car that already has two men in it, I also met one woman in a two-seater who would only pick up a female passenger. Works well, you see the same people all the time and folks range from quiet to friendly. There are a few cars I’ve learned to avoid but that’s because the driver blasts their stereo or has uncomfortable seats, not because I’m worried that they’re going to attack me.
It would be next-to-impossible in the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metrosprawl. Many people here have suburb to suburb commutes. I doubt there is a coworker within 20 miles of me.