Carpooling’s not just for the soccer-mom set. If you’re willing and able to share the ride with others, then a more dramatic commute-improvement could be in the works.
Carpooling “is helpful in terms of saving gas money because you split the costs,” says Linda Dowlen, the head of the Denver Regional Council of Governments’ RideArrangers program. “It’s often less stressful, because you’re not behind the wheel all of the time. A lot of people find the social aspect very beneficial.”
RideArrangers runs a carpool-matching service through its website,
. Go there, enter where you live and where you want to go, and the site will offer up nearby carpools you can join.
The service signs up from 500 to 600 new carpools a year and includes more than 6,000 people in its database, Dowlen says.
Another option, which Dowlen’s department can help organize, is a vanpool. Participants pay a monthly fee ranging from about $70 to $120, depending on the length of the commute and the number of people piling into the van every day. The van then shuttles riders between the pickup spot and another location, like downtown or the Tech Center.
They head as far south of Denver as Colorado Springs, and as far north as Fort Collins. Right now, the RideArrangers program sponsors about 84 vanpools, Dowlen says.
You vanpool to work, and you get a call: Your child is sick at school, and you need to pick him up. What then?
If you belong to the vanpool and your employer takes part in the “guaranteed ride home program,” you can get a free cab back home, and you can pick up junior.
