Once Popular, Car Pools Go the Way of Hitchhiking

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

Do people still hitchhike in Alaska?