Guest View: Experiences in a
Van Pool
(Bill Anderson, Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, Feb. 4, 2016)
This week, SEMCOG is encouraging single-occupant vehicle drivers to try a different commute during an event called Switch MI Trip. I would like to tell you a little bit about what happened when I switched my own trip.
Three years ago I started working at SEMCOG. One of the first things I did was sign up with a vanpool that runs from Brighton to Detroit. This was convenient for me on such a long commute. It was also good to know that SEMCOG encourages alternative modes of commuting. We leave Brighton early – at 6 a.m. to beat the traffic coming into town – and head out of downtown around 3:45 p.m. Fortunately, SEMCOG practices what it preaches by offering a flexible work schedule and some financial incentives for those who rideshare or use vanpools. There is never a question when I have to leave a meeting early because it is time to catch my ride home.
Life is always interesting when a group of people spends 10 hours a week together with nothing else to do but take a nap. There is a lot of that, especially in the morning. As the driver, I try to avoid that particular activity. However, you also learn a lot about your fellow riders.
In 2013, I was the sixth person to join the van. During that three-year stretch, two other riders have ridden on the van the entire time, while others have come and gone. There have been a lot of life stories shared over that time. One riding companion, the office manager for one of the major law firms downtown for a number of years, is headed to retirement at the end of February. We affectionately refer to her as our drill sergeant. She has kept us all in order and is quick to point out road issues that need to be fixed or when improvements occur. She will be spending a lot more time at that cabin in Roscommon and visiting her granddaughters in Florida starting this spring.
Three vanpools save at least 12 parking spaces in their Campus Martius parking garage.
My other stalwart retired from the Navy and now works for the Veterans Administration. During her 20 years in the Navy, she was stationed everywhere from Japan to Florida and all points between. We have been in the van while listening to news reports about the ineffective services offered to our veterans and hearing about the change in administration due to those failures. While she doesn’t comment on deficiencies, you can see how frustrated she can get if the job is not done right.
The saddest chapter in the history of our van involved a woman who worked at the federal courthouse. She would sometimes share interesting little tidbits regarding the major trials that were occurring a block away from my desk. She was very excited about planning an extended trip to Scandinavia. Just before that trip was to occur, she was diagnosed with cancer. She fought the disease for nearly a year but never took that trip. On the flip side, I have driven three women through the entire term of their pregnancies; one had twins. I only had to stop the van once in the middle of I-96 to deal with an upset stomach.
You may have noticed that my van has had a lot of women riders. One of the original riders was actually male. He was a civil engineer who specialized in traffic designs. After a few months, I found out he was looking to change jobs because there were so few road projects happening in Michigan. In looking for a place with more construction, he ended up moving his family to St. Louis.
One of the riders joined because of a medical issue. A seizure resulted in his loss of driving privileges for a minimum of six months. We bring him into the city so he can continue leading work on a very high profile project in the city. Sometimes you just have to deal with what life throws at you.
One young man joined our van to cut down his drive time while he was commuting from East Lansing to Detroit. All told, I have had four riders making that commute. He was a computer programmer for Quicken. His wife was doing research at MSU and they had a young daughter. He left the van when the family moved to cut down his commute. He rented an apartment in a building right across the street from our downtown parking garage and now walks home for lunch. One person left the van following her engagement to a man who lives in Royal Oak. We also had a rider who was a college student at the University of Oklahoma and took a summer internship job with Quicken.
Birth, death, retirement, marriage, college, medical issues, and issues that result when two people in the family head in different directions each morning…there are a multitude of reasons commuting can be complicated. At SEMCOG, we strive to understand these complexities when planning for our region’s future, as well as promote alternative ways to get to work to make life better.
If you have been thinking there might be a way to make your commute easier, less stressful, or better for the environment, you may be right. Switch MI Trip is your opportunity to find out for sure. And by the way, it might also be your chance to win a free iPad.
This guest view is republished with permission from: http://www.semcog.org/News-and-Events/Blog/experiencing-life-in-a-vanpool-7651