Good Morning America Delivers Giant Fluffball on Carpooling
by Judd WileyJuly 25th, 2008, 6:22 pm
This week, ABC News’ Good Morning America wraps up its “Carpool Challenge.” The network has been following four carpooling “teams” from some company called Pitney Bowes in Stamford, Connecticut. The idea is to show GMA viewers that – yes! – carpooling is the superior form of auto commuting.
If you go to ABC News’ website, there’s a short article that explains the purpose of the carpool challenge, and links to the individual blogs of the various participants. You can access a “savings calculator” and various pro-carpooling websites that help you find other carpoolers.
There’s also a short video further explaining the Good Morning America Carpool Challenge, in which a bubbly anchor babe waxes ebullient: “We always hear that the best way to save money on gas is to carpool!!!!!! … The average commuter could save almost $3,000 a year by carpooling!!!!!! … So why is it so hard for us to buddy up behind the wheel?!?!?!? …”
Now, I want to be perfectly clear about this. There’s nothing inherently wrong with carpooling. For many people, it works. It saves time, because carpoolers often have access to HOV lanes that move much faster than the regular lanes. It saves money, because carpoolers spend less on gas. And it reduces the number of cars on the road.
But it’s very important to remember that carpooling is impractical for many Americans.
There are essentially two types of carpooling. The first type is when you share a ride with your neighborhood carpool buddies. The car pulls up in front of your house; you grab your lunchbox, kiss the wife and kids goodbye, and join your amigos. “Hiya Chester, how’s life today?!?!” “Life sure is swell, Biff!!!!”
Only problem is that your carpool buddies have to (A) live near you, (B) leave home for work at the same time as you, (C) work near you, (D) leave work for home at the same time as you, and (E) forego all personal errands on the way home from work. And if you have to go to a lunch meeting outside the office, you’re up a creek. In other words, this form of carpooling is completely impractical unless your day is arranged in lockstep with your fellow carpoolers.
The second type of carpooling is when you go to a “rideshare” location. You arrive at some designated spot, wait there for a few minutes, a car pulls up, you get in, say hello to the driver, and you both zoom off to wherever it is you work. There are often rules about when you’re allowed to talk, what you’re allowed to talk about, whether you can smoke, etc.
The obvious problem, of course, is that you’re getting into a car driven by a complete stranger. Remember when you were in kindergarten and your teacher taught you never to do this? She taught you this for good reason: basic self-preservation. I would never let my wife – or 17-year-old daughter! – get into a car with a complete stranger. Who knows what could happen.
You’re also completely reliant on this unknown person, who may or may not even show up at the rideshare location. You’re also dependent on the length of the line of people waiting to rideshare. You could wait at your spot for 10, 30, 45 minutes before finding a ride.
So given the logistical and safety problems associated with carpooling, why does the government continue to incentivize carpooling through HOV lanes and – amazingly – taxpayer funded giveaways?
Yes, that’s right. Free stuff. According to Good Morning America’s anchor babe, the government subsidizes a private company called NuRide, which “rewards carpoolers with points that they can use like cash at restaurants and local retailers.” Some cities even “offer gas cards and cash incentives to carpoolers.” How nice.
Let’s stop for just a second and ask ourselves the following: Why does the government need to make a judgment that carpooling is inherently “better” than driving solo, and then create a whole smorgasbord of incentives, freebies, and other goodies to encourage Americans to buddy up on their way to work?
Wouldn’t the money be better spent expanding highways and upgrading mass transit, so everyone can move faster and more efficiently?
Unfortunately, those questions weren’t asked on Good Morning America’s giant fluffball of a news story. Instead of delivering a serious look at this controversial form of commuting, Good Morning America decided to jump onto the carpooling bandwagon - yay rideshare! - and play cheerleader. Shouldn’t we expect more from our media?
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Posted in Car Pool Lanes, Highways, Spending, Traffic Congestion |
Dear. Mr. Wiley –
I am sorry that you did not appreciate the work that Pitney Bowes and ABC collaborated on to highlight the benefits of carpooling. True, carpooling is not for everyone, but many people for whom carpooling IS appropriate are not taking advantage of it, and we were hoping through the Carpool Challenge to demonstrate the benefits of trying it, even for a week.
You also have one short paragraph in your posting that is startling in its logical inconsistency: “Wouldn’t the money be better spent expanding highways and upgrading mass transit, so everyone can move faster and more efficiently.”
Every commuter who carpools by definition removes one car from the road. By removing that car from the road, there is by definition less traffic and, therefore, everyone else moves faster and more efficiently. The more people who carpool, the great the benefit to everyone, even those who cannot carpool.
And since your profile indicates you have an aversion to high taxes, I would think you would be in favor of government subsidies for carpoolers. It is far less expensive to provide modest incentives to carpoolers than to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to expand highway capacity. After all, highways are “taxpayer giveaways” too, and not cheap ones at that.
Respectfully,
Matt Broder
VP External Communications
Pitney Bowes Inc.
Matt Broder,
We’re told by everyone – public officials, academics, news organizations, and now Pitney Bowes Inc. – that carpooling is an inherently better way to commute to work than driving solo.
Consequently, the government for decades has spent vast resources incentivizing carpooling by building carpool lanes, which lead to greater traffic congestion in the regular lanes (as opposed to keeping all lanes open for everyone to use).
If you take a 4 lane highway and convert 1 lane to a carpool lane, you’re reserving 25% of capacity for carpoolers, and forcing everyone else onto 75% of the road. Unless 25% of traffic uses the carpool lanes (which never happens because carpooling is impractical), congestion in the regular lanes (and nearby surface streets) gets worse.
The other way to create a carpool lane is to build an entirely new lane, but designate it HOV only. Sure, when you remove carpoolers from the regular lanes, traffic congestion in the regular lanes decreases. But we’re talking about a whole new lane here. Congestion in the regular lanes would have decreased much more if all cars were allowed to use this additional lane.
So even though carpool lanes lead to greater traffic congestion, the government keeps building these HOV-only lanes that only a few of us can use, rather than increasing highway capacity which would have benefited all drivers. This is the real shame of the push for carpooling. It encourages the creation of these lanes.
And for what? Currently, only 10.7% of American commuters carpool, while 77% drive solo. That’s pathetic, considering what the rest of us have given up in terms of regular lanes. This leads me to believe that carpooling, for most Americans, is not the optimal solution. If carpooling was really the optimal solution, this 10.7% figure would be much higher.
Thanks for your reply, Mr. Wiley, which seems to get to the root of our disagreement. I am writing about carpooling only, which is an unambiguous benefit for everyone — carpoolers and noncarpoolers alike. You are focused on carpooling and the link to the creation of HOV lanes.
It’s a classic baby-and-bathwater situation. I feel you should not dismiss carpooling in total simply because, in some cases, governments have chosen to build HOV lanes as an incentive. In Fairfield County, CT, where I work, you’ll not find any HOV lanes (nor will you ever, given land values, the density of development, and the impossible challenge of acquiring property rights across so many landowners and jurisdictions). Hence, any move to encourage carpooling brings immediate benefits to everyone.
Sincerely,
Matt Broder
I’m looking forward to ABC showing us how Christopher Cuomo, Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Sam Champion get to work. Do they carpool together? Perhaps they live in Manhattan and take the subway? Seriously, can there be anything more hypocrictical than a person who travels in a chaueffered car telling the rest of us to ration space in a communal vehicle to get around?
The political and economic elites who insist that we all stack ourselves up in tiny apartments and take mass transit do not live this way themselves.
Matt,
I did not dismiss carpooling in total. In the above post I wrote the following:
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with carpooling. For many people, it works. It saves time, because carpoolers often have access to HOV lanes that move much faster than the regular lanes. It saves money, because carpoolers spend less on gas. And it reduces the number of cars on the road.”
We agree: Yes, there are real benefits to carpooling.
I disagree with you, however, that we can separate a discussion of carpooling from a discussion of carpool lanes. Good Morning America has a national reach, including areas of the country where carpool lanes are a critical factor in the amount of time commuters spent on the road. A good example is the DC Metro Area, where a very small minority of drivers get preferential (and sometimes exclusive) access to the main entry points into the city. These carpool lanes are a source of major outrage and frustration for those of us who can’t use them for logistical reasons.
I understand that Good Morning America has an easygoing, less dramatic, less hard-hitting, softball style. All the same, it’s a major news show with a massive audience. We should expect more from such a program, especially in this time of rising gas prices and commuter pain. We should expect more than what was essentially a cheerleading activity for carpooling that (A) made the assumption that ordinary Americans don’t already understand the benefits of carpooling and (B) lacked any sort of critical look at the very real issues that prevent many Americans from carpooling.
Eric’s comment (#4) is also highly relevant here. Do you have any information on what percentage of executives at ABC News and Pitney Bowes carpool to work every day?