Carpooling

To save money, a group of us who live in the city meet at the foot of the bridge and carpool. Passengers buy drivers coffee at Peet’s after practice.

While our carpool began for financial reasons, it has become so important we would still ride this way even if cars suddenly ran on air and the toll disappeared.

We are a rolling confessional in the dark — an intergenerational group of five, the youngest in her 20s and the eldest in her 60s, with every decade in between represented. We have a unique mixture of wisdom and currency to attack all problems big and small, from which medical school Erika should choose, what stories I should write, to which prom dress we want, chosen from the catalog Kate brought to carpool from the school where she teaches.

I’m always interested in hearing about how people get around in various cities. When I was in S.F., I came across a lot of people who didn’t own cars, and if they did, they said they carpooled to save money on gas and tolls, and, sometimes, to get to a more desirable BART stop. This piece in the San Francisco Chronicle about carpooling is a nice snapshot of this.

Photo: Andrew Feinberg

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