Will More People Carpool If We Bring Park&Ride To Them?

A while back, I started a website called MyCasualCarpool.com in an effort to help people start park and ride lots in their own communities without any help from state and local governments. I started it after hearing my sister talk about how she saw the same cars on her 60 mile commute each day, and combined that with the "slugging" concept.

 

There are hundreds of churches, shopping centers that have seen better days, and other places in the DC area with large parking lots – many with hundreds of parking spaces - that are largely empty 9-5 on weekdays. Rather than VDOT building new park and ride lots, why not use the facilities we already have - facilities that are probably more convenient to most commuters than many of the VDOT lots.

MyCasualCarpool.com allows users to sign up listing their destination, schedule, and how far they are willing to travel to a park and ride lot. Another user might ask his church if he could start using the lot for commuter parking. Churches might be motivated to say yes for several reasons, including publicity and goodwill. Further, many daycare centers use church facilities. Being  able to drop their kids off at the same place as the park and ride lot would make things much more convenient for commuters who use daycare. 

Having obtained approval from the church (or other owner of a parking lot), the user proposing the lot would be able to see how many users of the site share his destination (and similar schedule) and are willing to drive as far as the proposed lot. If he determines that there are enough potential users of the lot, he can send an email to all potential users asking if they want to use the lot. When he feels the number of users has reached "critical mass," he can propose a starting date for using the new park and ride lot.

Such a system could potentially multiply the number of commuter parking spaces available, and also put more lots closer to users. People also may be more likely to engage in slugging if most of the users are from the same neighborhood.

MyCasualCarpool could be modified, or a similar site created for local users only, with a pull-down list of destinations based on present slugging drop-off points. 

I welcome suggestions and comments. In particular, how many regular users does it take to maintain an effective park and ride lot? That would provide a threshold for users proposing park and ride lots to use before asking people to begin using a new lot. Thanks in advance for your input.

 

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Kent Basson

kbasson@hotmail.com
Falls Church, Virginia

Comments

[Carpooler]

People should carpool more. I do it and it saves me a lot of money.

[Steve Offutt]

I believe there are about 8 parking spots in the US for every car, so it would seem there shouldn't be much need to build more.
Also, why couldn't churches or others charge a fee to use their lot? If I had to pay $1/day to the church but saved the time and money, that would seem pretty reasonable to me. And it would help defray the costs of maintenance for the lot.