It is a New Year, so that means it is time to buckle down on your New Year’s resolutions. Coming up with new goals may be just as hard as keeping them. However, be brave this year! Why not try something like carpooling?

Changing your commute may be a daunting task. You may have a complicated schedule, or you just may be hesitant about the idea of sharing a car. Using carpools can generally reduce the cost of commuting, greenhouse gas emissions, and can quicken commutes on congested highways. Moreover, there are ways where you can creatively find new carpools and meet new people.

Before the New Year, employees from our administrative offices attended a social lunch mixer with our neighbors from the Sonoma County Water Agency put on by the Carma team to demonstrate its mobile ridesharing app. Our very own Sachin Amin and Dave Toister have been very active members of the carpooling community (some might even call them Super Users!). Sachin and Dave both received prizes and recognition for immediately giving Carma carpool rides. Moreover, Dave received extra prizes for bringing four more members into the Carma carpool community. They are shining examples of how carpooling really works. Hopefully they can inspire you!

Here is what they had to say about carpooling and using the Carma app.

1. Have you carpooled before using the Carma app? Why or why not?
Yes, I was previously carpooling before the app. To save time, save money/gas, and help decrease traffic on the roads.

2. Does the app make carpooling easier? If so, how?
Yes and no. For pre-arranged, scheduled carpooling, it does not offer that much to assist if you already have something going, unless you are looking to add more people. Ad-hoc trips is where it shines, and also for getting people initially paired up for carpooling that might not otherwise have been able to find people for it. It will be even more useful once more people are using it.

3. Would you recommend carpooling? Why or why not?
I would recommend it – for a few reasons. One, the more people using it, the more likely people who may not already carpool (or who have varied schedules) will be able to find people to ride with. If you aren’t already carpooling, or want to find more people to ride with, there are groups for our business park that should make it even easier to find people with matching schedules. Another reason is right now there are some nice incentives for using it.

-Sabrina Sihakom, Sustainability Coordinator