During transit strike, carpooling demand
not as strong as expected
By Mark Ginocchio
Staff Writer
Published December 22 2005
Although stories of commuters being good Samaritans and picking
up strangers abound within Manhattan, carpooling has not generated
much interest in Connecticut during the transit strike.
"It's surprising," said John Lyons, president and chief
executive officer of MetroPool, a state-sponsored organization that
helps commuters find alternative modes of transportation.
The 2000 census showed that about 25,000 Fairfield County residents
commute to Manhattan for work, and nearly 3,900 commute from Manhattan
and the Bronx, N.Y., to Stamford, Greenwich and Norwalk.
One of the state's main tools to recruit carpoolers is the incentive-based
Web site, NuRide, which rewards carpoolers with coupons to retailers.
On Dec. 15, the day before a transit strike was first threatened,
11 people signed up for NuRide, an increase over a normal day, Lyons
said. But since then, new interest on the site has cooled. Carpooling
restrictions allow no less than four people to a car in Manhattan
south of 96th Street from 5 to 11 a.m. because of the strike.
"I'm guessing there are cases of four people who work together
and setting up (a carpool) on their own," Lyons said. "Also
more people are on vacation this week. You'll probably see something
different if the strike goes," longer than expected.
That's not to say there hasn't been any interest in MetroPool.
The organization has extended its hours from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. because
of the strike. While its Web site normally gets about 270 visitors
a day, it got 986 Monday, Lyons said.
There also have been more phone calls. Routinely, MetroPool offices
may get about 15 to 20 calls a day, but more than 400 came in Tuesday,
the first day of the strike, Lyons added.
Most calls are from people asking about the transit restrictions
and alternatives, he said.
Reverse commuters say they've also noticed the lack of interest
in carpooling.
Gassan Abdoulaev offered room in his car for stranded passengers
headed from Brooklyn, N.Y., to his offices in Norwalk. Despite posting
his services on the Web site Craig's List since Thursday, there
was little response.
"I guess the main reason is there are not that many people
commuting from Brooklyn to Connecticut," said Abdoulaev, who
works for a financial services firm. "In our company, I'm the
only one who lives in Brooklyn. . . . I bet if I lived in Manhattan,
the response would have been more significant."
Contributing to the lack of urgency to carpool this week may be
technology. Wireless laptops, Internet-enabled cell phones and employees
working from home have allowed many Manhattan offices to stay functional,
business experts said.
"We're open for business as usual," said Selena Morris,
spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch. The financial services company had
some employees work from home, while others traveled to regional
offices if getting into Manhattan was too difficult.
"It makes it a lot easier for people to function when you
have a crisis like this, just to log in from wherever you are,"
she said. "It's inconvenient, obviously, but I think we've
been able to work around it."
Dennis Fleischmann, managing partner of the Bryan Cave law firm's
New York office, said the strike was having a "minimal"
effect, with most employees able to get in and others working from
home.
"These days in our business, between e-mail and voice mail,
you can function reasonably well from a remote location," he
said. "In terms of productivity we don't really lose very much."
"So many employers today have made telecommuting and telework
a normal way of doing business that it isn't a big leap for them
to have some of their employees doing it in this case," said
Gil Gordon, a telecommuting consultant in Monmouth Junction, N.J.
But for some, staying at home was not an option, and after not
finding a carpool yesterday, Emily Baker settled for a cab.
"I came into work today, waited out the peak travel time and
was able to get a cab right outside Grand Central to get downtown,"
said Baker, a New Canaan resident who also used Craig's List to
seek a carpool to her office in lower Manhattan yesterday. "Hopefully,
it goes as smoothly on the way home tonight. The cab drivers don't
seem to mind the strike with four people to a cab and $15 a head."
-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
Copyright © 2005, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.
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