Carpooling is an attitude

Growing up, in order to use a paper towel or get a ride somewhere, you needed to be a lawyer with a convincing argument. My parents focused on providing the essentials for their brood of nine children: shelter, food and love.

"Rides" was not on the list. They were as valuable as paper towels, and not to be wasted.

As a 16-year-old, I signed up for an adult education course at the University of Delaware, 13 miles away in Newark, Del. In Delaware in 1973, Wilmington to Newark was a long way and required a toll of either 10 or 15 cents.

You had to drive on back roads for a bit longer if you took the first exit on the new interstate, but you saved a nickel – when it meant something.

So did a car. Every person over age 16 was not expected to have a car. There were still one-car families. With a hoard of drivers, we had two cars, but I was only allowed to use it for the first class, when my mother instructed me to find a carpool.

In those days, we didn't have the Internet. I found a match the old-fashioned way. I asked if anyone was coming from Wilmington. Two guys, who must have been 20-something, offered me a ride.

Today, they might not have passed a CORI check. Most mothers wouldn't encourage their shapely teenage daughter to get into a car with two unknown men. My mother was a trusting soul. I really wanted to take the class. Even though it was awkward, I did what my mother said. I think I paid the tolls.

My mother created a life-long attitude in me towards carpooling. It doesn't hurt. Ask and you shall receive. You will save money and resources. Strangers can be trusted. Carpool partners are lurking all around.

Born in 1919 and 1921, my parents grew up in the Great Depression. They knew how to stretch a dollar or a nickel. My mother remembers frantically scouring their apartment in Chicago for seven cents so her mother, a physician, could ride the trolley downtown to go to work.

My father recalls saving for a year for $2 to buy a new tire for his bike. When he prepared to buy the tire, his family needed the cash. He started to save again, and after two years, bought the tire and his freedom on a bike.

Children today don't have the experience of delayed gratification. They don't understand that things are not the essence of life. At the end of my mother's long life, I gave her a bumper sticker, "The best things in life are not things," a phrase she lived by, and displayed on her car.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

What's a vanpool, Mommy? Watch the video, sweetie

The spike in gas prices has brought carpooling from backstage and into the spotlight. All of a sudden, we humble carpoolers are news, and are featured on the news and newspapers. Our simple, collaborative, green journey to work that has gone unnoticed for decades, has reached prime time.


Some carpools evolve into a vanpool -- in which a group of 7-15 people who live and work near each other lease a van and commute together. They commit to ride it monthly, designate volunteer drivers [some of whom ride free] and create an account to buy gas.


It's like a private, mobile, self-driven mini-bus that takes scores of cars off the road. I call it THE solution to "suburban mobility," also known as a suburb-to-suburb commute.


In Boston, only 25 percent of the daily commute is INTO downtown Boston, yet the lion's share of public transit is geared towards that journey. The other 75 percent -- which is suburb-to-suburb -- stays backstage.


My 26-mile daily commute is suburb-to-suburb. I start on back roads, spend 13 miles on the interstate, and finish on a four-lane state road. Because of the low volume of people who come this route, bus service does not make sense, BUT a vanpool would. And a vanpool is faster and more efficient than a bus.

However, a vanpool requires commitment, collaboration, drivers and riders. Riding transit or carpooling are a lot simpler. But vanpools save more money and vehicular wear-and-tear. They're practical on commutes LONGER than 20 miles.

My favorite quote of the vanpooler interviewed for this news report on a Detroit TV station http://www.clickondetroit.com/video/17259230/index.html is the reason why he likes vanpooling: "I get free consultants on technology and the law," referring to fellow vanpoolers' expertise.

The bonus of vanpooling or carpooling is the entertainment, education, laughter, consulting and friendship of fellow riders. You have to carpool or vanpool to experience it.