[OKC] From NY Times: Once Popular, Car Pools Go the Way of Hitchhiking

[Miles, Karen]

Once Popular, Car Pools Go the Way of Hitchhiking


By SABRINA TAVERNISE
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/t/sabrina_ta
vernise/index.html?inline=nyt-per>  and ROBERT GEBELOFF
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/robert_geb
eloff/index.html?inline=nyt-per> 

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - Remember the 1970s? Watergate, disco, oil embargoes
and, of course, car-pooling. Many big companies organized group rides
for their employees, and roughly one in four Americans who drove to work
shared a ride with others. 
But now far more people are driving alone, as companies have spread out,
Americans are wealthier and cars have become cheaper to own. The
percentage of workers who car-pool has dropped by almost half since
1980, the first time the Census Bureau
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/cen
sus_bureau/index.html?inline=nyt-org>  started systematically tracking
the numbers, according to new data from the bureau. 
The sharp decline has confounded efforts by urban planners, who over the
years have tried to encourage the practice by setting aside highway
lanes for car-poolers, as well as offering incentives like discounted
parking. 
They thought they were getting some help from amendments to the Clean
Air Act
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/clean_ai
r_act/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>  in 1990 that would have
required many companies to develop plans to increase car-pooling and
mass transit use. But Congress, after hearing from critics who said the
proposal was unworkable, scrapped the idea in the mid-'90s. 
Today, advocates point to the increase in social networking tools that
would make it easier to identify potential ride-sharing mates - yet the
national car-pooling rate continues to fall, and today it is below 12
percent of all drivers. 
The drop has occurred in cities across the country. For example, the
car-pooling rate fell by more than half since 1980 in Rochester and its
suburbs, as well as in Worcester County, Mass., and in the suburbs of
Kansas City. Even in San Diego County, Calif., the state where modern
car-pooling began, the rate was down by more than a third. 
Here in the fast-growing suburbs of Washington, the number of people
driving alone has more than doubled since 1980. That is a sharp contrast
from a generation ago, when Washington had one of the highest
car-pooling rates in the nation, with one person car-pooling for every
two driving to work alone. Today, for every one car-pooler, there are
six solo drivers. This trend crawls to life every weekday morning before
dawn, when a stretch of Interstate 95 turns into a glittering river of
headlights moving so slowly that drivers need to leave up to two hours
to cover a 30-mile trip. 
Article continues at: 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/us/29carpool.html?nl=todaysheadlines&e
mc=tha23
 
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