

Once Popular, Car Pools Go the Way of Hitchhiking - trustfundbaby
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/us/29carpool.html

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spidaman
I take casual carpool from the east bay into San Francisco on a regular basis
(and on the rare occasions I need to drive in, I always pick up carpoolers).
What I've observed is that the higher the price of gas, the more riders are
available for carpoolers. The win for drivers is clear: a lot of times the
morning backup at the Bay Bridge is about 20 minutes, carpoolers can bypass
that completely. The other day, I caught a ride with a guy who was going to
the same building that I work out of; it was better than getting a cab to
work.

Incentivized by time and cost savings, carpooling could be extremely
successful. What has failed are the centrally organized carpooling systems
operated by governments. And the startups that I've seen that aim to
facilitate carpooling have all sucked. I'm certain that carpooling would be
more successful here if there were more carpool lanes, like on the hwy 580 and
24 approaches to the Bay Bridge and more carpool lanes in the reverse
direction (right now, it's only hwy 80).

While I take mass transit (Muni and BART) on a regular basis, mass transit
can't be the only alternative to driving alone. These transit systems are
often hamstrung by poor management and drain a lot of tax dollars.

Calling carpooling a crutch and failed urban planning (other comments here) is
inaccurate. As a country we pour billions of dollars into bridges, tunnels and
highways to keep up with the demand of single occupant cars during commute
hours. The lost productivity and the pollution and petroleum dependency growth
is an enormous burden on the country. That's a dramatically larger failing
than carpooling.

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brudgers
The article ignores the impact of changes in the workplace. With the shift
towards a service economy fewer people work the sort of regular hours
associated with manufacturing and shift work. The decline in organized labor
also means that additional hours are more easily and cheaply added to the
workday of many people. When using D.C. as an example, the article also
glosses over the increased availability of public transportation as the DC
metro system has expanded since the 1970's.

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quanticle
Right. When given the choice between carpooling, taking the bus, or driving
alone, I choose to take the bus. The bus has advantages from both of the other
options - its more flexible than carpooling, and it gets to use the HOV lanes
that are unavailable for regular drivers.

Rather than continuing to dump resources into a failed experiment (i.e.
carpooling), urban planners should be working to increase the availability of
mass transit.

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adrianN
Carpooling is just a crutch to migitate the effects of the abismal city
planning that has happened in America during the last few decades. Building
cities that are totally dependent on cars is just an aweful idea. From what
I've heard it's hardly possible to do even such elementary things as grocery
shopping without driving twenty minutes on each way.

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JoeAltmaier
Some of us actually carpool to save money, avoid driving every day, socialize,
save the planet. Just a crutch?

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quanticle
You could accomplish the same things via taking mass transit. Unfortunately,
the layout of cities in the US (especially newer ones like Atlanta) makes
having good mass transit nearly impossible due to lack of concentration.

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JoeAltmaier
Mass transit? Kidding,right?

I've had to use mass transit before, in my poor student days. Misery. Standing
at rainy bus stops hoping the bus might come, half-hour connections, taking
2-3 hours out of my day for a 15-minute trip each way.

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adrianN
So instead you just called your car pool?

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regehr
Gas is too cheap here. This will fix itself sooner or later.

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roel_v
It's twice as expensive over here and we still have the same problems. Still I
agree with you - America just has a lot more distance to cover until this
point arrives. The only thing that will bring change is to make driving so
expensive so that the bottom 25 or 50 or so percent can't afford it any more.
Doing this by law is politically unfeasible, but maybe rising gas prices
because of increased demand from developing countries will make it so...

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lkozma
The reply of icegreentea to brudgers in this thread appears as [dead] and
greyed, which is strange as icegreentea seems to have high karma and avg and
the comment itself is useful. Does anyone know what's going on?

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icegreentea
Uh, for some reason when I posted, it double posted, so I deleted one of
them... and then this happened.

Slight head scratcher.

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lkozma
In my experience carpooling is becoming more and more viable and popular in
Europe, in the past few years I traveled almost exclusively in this way.
Between major cities in western Europe you can almost always find rides on
websites (being slightly flexible on the time). In eastern Europe you can
still safely hitchhike on the roadside (if weather is good). I like both
modalities and when I happen to drive a car I always take passengers as well.

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teyc
I believe it is not popular because of perceived thinness in the markets. If
all carpoolers advertised that they car pool through a bumper sticker, then
over time, people might dip their toes in.

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sliverstorm
It has not 'gone the way of hitchhiking' unless it has been made illegal, like
hitchhiking.

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masterj
If you're referring to the US, there are laws against it in a few states, but
it is not outright illegal. Even in the states where there are laws against
it, many people successfully do it every year. It is the general perception
though.

<http://hitchwiki.org/en/United_States#Police>

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stcredzero
Do people still hitchhike in Alaska?

