NAC: gas prices going up.....more...

[Alex Kowalski]

Well, I think one thing I should clarify here is that my embrace of carpooling isn't because I think it's the magic-bullet solution for all our problems, nor should people be forced in any way to do it.  I _*assume*_ that carpooling should have a small impact (around 15-20%) but a measurable and a meaningful one.  I also think that people should choose how to use it, according to their differing schedules, needs and habits.   In other words, it should emerge as an alternative in a sort of spontaneous, adaptive way (how you incentivize and pay for its implementation is another question.)  

Nobody has a perfect answer for everyone's transportation needs, and nobody should.   But I do know this:  I used to live in one of the largest all-rental apartment buildings in the world (56 stories high, 980+ units) on the north side of Chicago.  In the morning, the traffic out the garage and on the side streets, trying to get onto Lake Shore Drive for a 3-odd mile trip downtown, was (and still is) up to an hour wait time for the whole drive.  To go three miles.  Alone.  In a car (or, as the case often was, an SUV.) And then do it again the end of the day.  After you do that a few hundred times, you start to think:  "What if 20% of these people shared a ride?  How could I facilitate that?"

Alex Kowalski
'87 5KCSTQ


>  As far as I know, there is still no such carpooling portal operating
> nationwide on the Internet -- a little surprising, because you would think
> in cities at least, people would be willing to give it a try to cut back
> on their daily wait times and the fuel costs.
> -------------------------------------------
> 
> a interesting side note is that here in southeastern michigan there are
> companies that use old school buses to shuttle workers from where they
> live to industrial parks.  at shift change you can hear a fleet of old
> diesel school buses waiting to take workers up to a hour away back to
> their homes.  the cliental is primarily poor black automotive workers from
> Flint, MI that work in the industrial parks that were built in
> greenfields.  the things that city planners and corporations find
> "efficient" always seem to amaze me.
> 
> jonathan