Rules for Slugging in San Francisco

Easy riders -- casual carpooling rolls on with few hassles
30-year-old social experiment rated high by commuters
- Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, January 31, 2005

This is the one line people actually like to stand in. Or park in, for that matter.

Every weekday morning, mostly in the East Bay, you see them lined up like lemmings -- sedans, SUVs, pickup trucks and the odd sports car, creeping along the curb. Coming up the sidewalk toward them, dressed for the day's battle with the city, are the hardy commuters.

It's the casual carpool, a free-form, almost completely unorganized amalgam of that rare thing in the social economy -- something that actually works, an idea that benefits most of the people involved. Cars heading for San Francisco get filled with people going in the same direction, and the drivers can use carpool lanes to bypass the wait at the Bay Bridge tollbooths and, as lagniappe, save $3 a day.

Now the carpool experiment -- though it's probably unfair to call a 30- year-old activity an experiment -- has spread from its birthplaces in Oakland and Berkeley into such far-flung places as Vallejo and Fairfield, growing even as the Bay Area grows.

"It's better than BART. I can always get a seat, it's free, it's faster, and I hate to drive," said Helen Wolff, a 26-year-old attorney who has been getting rides to the city from a carpool pickup point near the Safeway on Claremont Avenue in Oakland for the past four months. "It's the closest I'll come to hitchhiking. It adds a bit of adventure to the morning commute."

Wolff is one of hundreds or even thousands of people, for all anyone knows -- the beauty of this operation is that no government agency monitors it -- who are part of a commuting venture that has produced its own culture of behavior, the do's and don'ts of being a rider and driver.

Most of the region's casual carpoolers appear to come from Albany, Berkeley and Oakland, and most of them seem to work in downtown San Francisco, usually a ride of 20 to 30 minutes from the inner East Bay. And what do they do during the ride?

For the most part, nothing. Somewhere along the line, a form of etiquette evolved that goes like this: no smoking, don't use your cell phone, driver chooses the radio station (normally, it's classical music, jazz or, particularly from Berkeley cars, National Public Radio), and, above all, only the driver may initiate conversation.

But like many things that purport to have rules, and people being who they are, the rules get broken.

Michael Floss, a 45-year-old banker, said he's caught rides from three places -- Oakland's Lake Merritt, North Berkeley near the BART station and the Claremont Avenue/Safeway spot.

"The Lake Merritt rides were more friendly, more talkative," Floss said. "The rules about driver starting conversation weren't as rigid. On one of my first rides, it turned out the driver and I work at the same company."

Floss once recommended to some friends who were traveling around the world on $25 a day that they take the carpool to San Francisco as a cheap way of getting to town.

"So they're chatting to the driver and as he pulls over to let them out, he hands them a $100 bill and says, 'I hope you can stay a couple more days in San Francisco,' " Floss said.

On the other hand, given that human behavior isn't always perfect, there can be a few wrinkles in this carpool business. Although the California Highway Patrol and local police could not recall any major crimes associated with the casual carpool system, there are unverified and isolated reports about quirky drivers, the kind you think twice about when the car pulls up, and even quirky riders.

One woman, according to Wolff, has been known to walk up to an SUV and open the door as if she were about to get in. She suddenly "goes on a tirade, shouting, 'Shame on you for driving an SUV! You're ruining the environment!' " Wolff said. "Then she slams the door and takes the car behind the SUV."

The other day, standing in the Rockridge queue, 47-year-old Stacey Weinberger was first in line for the next car, a two-seat Thunderbird. (Two- seat cars with two passengers are allowed in the Bay Bridge carpool lanes.) Weinberger bent down to have a look at the driver, saw it was a man, and opted for the next car.

"I'm not comfortable riding in a two-seater with people I don't know," Weinberger said. She was one of several women who said they think twice about riding in a two-seater driven by a man.

But the occasional aberrations are the exceptions. San Francisco police robbery division Inspector Ray Ragona said he had never heard of a rider or driver filing a crime report after carpooling into the city, and he applauded the carpool system as "one of those strange things that actually works. I let a total stranger in my car, and he might be an ax murderer out of Arkansas, but I've never heard of any such crimes (in the Bay Area carpools)."

Bob Berndt, 41, who comes in from Orinda and picks up passengers in Oakland, said that in three years of driving commuters, "I've seen nothing odd. The only thing I notice is that people bring their own kinds of phobias, like adjusting the seat or the air vents, but it's no big deal. They're establishing their space."

And Jennifer Lee, a 34-year-old writer who was getting a lift in Berndt's Volvo wagon recently, said, "In four years (of carpooling), I've met only one odd person. He's a retired man who picks up people and drives them to the city. He's very talkative.

"He said, 'I do this because I want to meet people.' He was friendly. But clearly lonely."

For the retiree driving in from Oakland, it's not an onerous journey -- half an hour at best. From Solano County, it's more than twice the distance, but in Solano County, one of the fastest-growing counties of California, distance doesn't seem to matter. Each day, hundreds of commuters from Vallejo and even farther afield pour onto Interstate 80 and head south.

The other day, shortly after 7 a.m., a reporter picked up two commuters at the main rendezvous point in Vallejo, the big Caltrans park-and-ride lot at Curtola Parkway and Lemon Street. The lot, where commuters leave their cars for the day, is usually full by 6:30 a.m.

The 30-mile ride from Vallejo to downtown San Francisco seems more casual than the journeys from Oakland or Berkeley -- three people are cooped up in a car for as much as an hour, and they tend to get to know each other over the long haul.

"I think it's kind of like networking," Oscar Lumanlan, 47, said as the car slipped into the carpool lane about six miles south of the Carquinez Bridge. The Financial District worker said the long ride to work encourages conversation, and he's used it as an opportunity to "learn a lot of things" from his fellow passengers.

His co-rider, 45-year-old computer expert Tim Savage, said he's even discovered a new wrinkle on the traditional journey. Savage said that when he was driving passengers into San Francisco from Vallejo, he learned that many of them actually work in Oakland. They find it faster to carpool into San Francisco and then take BART back to Oakland than it would have been driving solo from Vallejo down the creep-and-crawl I-80 corridor.

In the evening, there's a reverse commute from San Francisco -- drivers returning to Vallejo, Fairfield and elsewhere pick up riders on Beale Street, between Howard and Folsom streets.

"I actually get home earlier than if I drove into the city myself," Savage said.
For more details

More information about the Bay Area's casual carpooling can be found at www.ridenow.org/carpool, created by UC Berkeley computer programmer Dan Kirshner.
CASUAL CARPOOLING

-- Rules Of The Road

Over the years, casual carpoolers have developed an informal etiquette. Here are some of the do’s and don’ts:

- If there are more cars than waiting riders, it’s a max of three people to a car. But when there are many riders and only the occasionally arriving car, it’s OK for a rider to ask the driver, “Will you take three?”

- First come, first served. Riders should stay in the queue. Be polite.

- Same thing for drivers: Don’t drive around the neighborhood looking for riders who are heading for the carpool pickup point. It’s unfair for the drivers who have been waiting in line. It’s OK for women to decline a ride in a two-seater driven by a man, letting the first man in line take the ride instead.

- No talking during the ride, unless it’s initiated by the driver. But it’s all right to break that rule if you see a big truck wandering into your lane and think perhaps you should warn the driver.

- Radios, if they’re on at all, are tuned to jazz or classical music, or to National Public Radio. KCBS is too jangly and hot for that hour of the morning.

- No smoking. No eating. No drinking. This brings up the delicate subject of telling the prospective rider, who has one leg into your car, “I’d prefer it if you did not bring your 12-ounce decaf soy milk latte into my car, where you may well spill it.”

- No using cell phones. Stifle the ringer.

- Everyone should buckle up.

- Let people out at Fremont and Howard streets. It’s OK for passengers to ask drivers to let them out farther down Howard or up in the Financial District, if that’s where the car is headed.
-- Oakland

1. Claremont and College. By the Union 76 gas station on the north side of Claremont.

2. Hudson and Claremont. Under Hwy 24 on Hudson, just before Claremont.

3. Grand and Perkins. On the north side of Grand, by the Shell sign next to AC Transit stop.

4. Lakeshore and Grand. Under I-580 in parking lot, on the left as you enter.

5. Oakland and Monte Vista. At the intersection of Oakland and Monte Vista.

6. Park and Hampel. Near TransBay bus stop on Park and Hampel.

7. Park and Hollywood. Adjacent to TransBay bus stops on Park between Trestle Glen and Hollywood.

8. High St and MacArthur. At the vacant lot on the corner. -- Piedmont

9. Oakland and Hillside. On Oakland Avenue, just east of Hillside.. -- Oakland

Fruitvale & Montana. Just north of Park and Ride lot on Montana by Flagg.

-- Moraga

Moraga Way. North side of Moraga Way, west of School Street.

-- Lafayette

BART North of the station, just outside and to the right of the parking lot.

-- Alameda

Encinal and Park Ave. On the northeast corner of Encinal and Park Ave.

-- Emeryville marina

Powell St. between Admiral and Commodore.

-- Berkeley

North Berkeley BART. On Sacramento, east of the entrance to the BART station. Some rides to Civic Center. Just carry a sign saying “Civic Center.”

-- El Cerrito

Del Norte BART. On Eastshore, just south of HomeLife. Do not park in the HomeLife parking lot. You will be ticketed/towed.

-- Albany

Pierce St. south of Central Ave. Across the street from the Pacific Far East shopping mall.

-- Richmond

Richmond Parkway Park and Ride. Richmond Parkway just west of I-80. Caution: the lot fills early (7 a.m.). You may be towed if you park in the adjacent shopping center lot.

-- Hercules

Park and Ride. In the lot, near 80 on San Pablo Ave., just north of Sycamore. Caution: the lot has been filling up. Please do not park illegally; cars will be towed.

-- Orinda BART

In the alley on the north side of Theater Square.

-- Fairfield

1. Fairfield Transportation Center.

Cadenasso Dr. near Beck Ave south of I-80 W. Texas St. exit).

2. Starting today: Corner of Cadenasso and Magellan.

E-mail Michael Taylor at mtaylor@sfchronicle.com.