A self-described “treehugger,” Chiri couldn’t stomach the idea of driving between her home in Moss Beach to the Bayside for almost two hours each day, burning a few gallons of gas into the atmosphere along the way.
“I was standing at the Shell station, filling up my car, going ‘Oh, my God,’” Chiri said. “I’m watching all these cars on 92 and every one of them was single-driver. ‘This is really dumb,’ I thought.”
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“I priced out a Prius to see if I would save any money, and it still didn’t work out,” Farzaroli said.
Like a throng of other Coastside residents, the two women are employed over the hill, meaning an arduous, hours-long routine of traffic day in, day out. But the two Coastsiders found the classic commuting solution: carpooling.
Approximately 70 percent of those who live on the Coastside commute to other cities to work, says Christine Maley-Grubl, executive director of the Peninsula Traffic Congestion Relief Alliance. Of those commuters, she said, more than 80 percent drive alone.
Maley-Grubl says that on nationwide traffic congestion surveys, San Mateo, along with all other eight Bay Area counties, always appears near the top of the list.
For people who must travel long distances to get to work, finding an alternative to driving solo can cut costs, traffic and carbon emissions — but it still requires personal sacrifice. And for those living on the Coastside, it’s even harder.
Right now is a lucrative time to start ridesharing, Maley-Grubl says. Her agency is offering $60 gas cards to carpools with at least two people.
But while elaborate Bay Area rideshare systems like 511.org work quickly in the densely populated Bayside, carpools generally are harder to organize on the coast.
“It all depends on how many people from the area are signing up,” said Kit Powis, public information officer at 511.org. “If a lot of people are signing up, they have a greater chance of having people traveling to the same area, at the same time.”
Carpooling may be particularly attractive for many Coastsiders as many of the popular options for alternative transportation simply aren’t available.
“For Half Moon Bay, mass transit is not an option,” said John Goodwin, public information officer at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. “Carpooling is much more viable, or there’s still a lot of smaller hidden things that can be done to improve fuel efficiency.” Goodwin suggests doing small car maintenance jobs to reduce gas consumption. Small tasks like having a car tuned up, changing the air filter and using the manufacturer-recommended air pressure in the vehicle tires can save gas over long distances.
Logically, lightening the load in a vehicle allows it to use less fuel, says Goodwin, so cleaning out the trunk can also save gas. Finally, Goodwin says driving slow and steady rather than aggressively, with frequent braking, can also make a difference.
“It’s never popular, but very effective,” Goodwin said. “If drivers slow down to just 65 mph on highways, they improve fuel efficiency by about 15 percent.”
Chiri says she had no luck organizing a carpool for more than two months after trying 511.org, posting on Web site message boards, and even scribbling notes on the Cunha’s market bulletin board. Working as a tech writer at TIBCO Software in Palo Alto, she eventually had a hit in late April after posting a message on her company network. That’s how she met Farzaroli, and since then the two have been organizing their carpool routine using instant messaging.
“It was love at first sight,” Farzaroli said. “I do miss my alone time, I miss my books on tape, but it’s worth it to save so much.”
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