Linda Swartz has been carpooling to work for almost 30 years. In addition to saving gas money, she says she is less stressed in the mornings, which has made her 30 minute commute from Stuarts Draft, across the mountain in Augusta County, to Fontaine Research Park a lot more fun.
"We usually talk, or sometimes we read," says Swartz. "But, usually, we’re just talking up a storm."
Beth Grimm, Linda Swartz and Carolyn Notthingham push down their gas bills by carpooling to work from Stuarts Draft
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Swartz and her two driving partners may be on to something. When gas prices in the Commonwealth reached a peak average of $3.14 a gallon in September 2005, applications for a local ride-sharing program reached a similar high with 69 applications received that month. This data from the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission (TJPDC), which operates the RideShare program, illustrates what commission officials note as a correlation between the high price of gasoline in recent years and the number of people interested in carpooling.
"Some people use the program for environmental reasons, but a majority of people just do it to save some money," says RideShare Outreach Coordinator Lisa Horanyi.
In addition to facilitating carpools, RideShare also helps coordinate "schoolpools," consolidating parents who transport their children to and from school, and "vanpools," gathering commuting workers from a common employer in what can be an employee-sponsored vehicle. While Horanyi cannot estimate the total number of individuals currently using RideShare to organize carpools and related commuting options, she says that 25 percent of individuals who expressed interest in RideShare during the past year participated. Twenty-nine carpools were setup with the assistance of the program last year.
Members of the TJPDC’s Metropolitan Planning Organization Citizens’ Committee took note of this increasing interest in carpooling at their September 5 meeting and discussed other viable options to help combat rising fuel prices and local travel demand. Mentioned among plans for the further promotion of RideShare were suggestions for abolishing city bus fines, the expansion of the current bus network and the dedication of certain lanes of traffic for public transportation only.
"I can’t imagine being in a vehicle where it took me $10 of gas to get to the grocery store," says Ann Mallek, committee member and Albemarle County Board of Supervisors candidate. "There just seems to be a different perspective. People expect to spend a greater part of their income on getting around than they used to."
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