UCLA's solo commuters are leaving their cars behind

By Alison Hewitt

With gas prices rocketing toward $5 per gallon and rush hours that challenge even the Zen-est of temperaments, something unusual is happening to UCLA commuters: They are giving up solo driving in record numbers.

"Normally, when energy prices rise, we see people trying to wait it out, but this time they're not seeing it go away, so they're taking action," said Penny Menton, the associate director of UCLA Transportation. "People are really jumping out of their cars."

Even people who already take UCLA vanpools are rethinking their driving habits. Orlando Terrazas, a safety specialist with Insurance and Risk Management, used to be willing to skip his vanpool and drive in from his home in Whittier occasionally. But when he needed to run errands recently, paying for the 70 miles' worth of gas just didn't add up.

"It made more sense to take a vacation day," Terrazas said. So he did.

Vanpool occupancy is at 96%, an all-time high, and bus ridership and carpooling programs are also growing, Menton said. Six new vanpools are in the works, and UCLA Transportation is devising creative commuting plans to meet the demand.

Seth Coelen, who began working in May as the principal project manager at UCLA's Communications Technology Services, is a recent convert to the vanpools under a unique program that creates space for an extra rider almost out of thin air. The +ONE program allows a 12th person to sign up for an 11-passenger vanpool. UCLA transit officials found that vans almost always had a spare seat because a regular rider might be on vacation, out sick, on jury duty, on a business trip, driving themselves or even oversleeping. As a result, Coelen got a seat every day — and got to work faster.

"My commute home was outrageous, about 2 or 2½ hours to Huntington Beach," he said. Now it takes an hour each way using the freeway carpool lanes.

Coelen has already snagged a permanent spot in his vanpool, in part because signing up for +ONE entitled him to the next available seat. It has relieved his anxiety that his van might one day be too full for him to ride — but after a year and a half in operation, no +ONE rider in the program has ever said they couldn't get a ride. More than 130 people have signed up.

Beginning this month, UCLA Transportation is also offering free monthly bus passes for the summer on the transit system of the commuter's choice to staff and faculty drivers who give up their parking passes. Those who don't become public-transit converts when they "Take a Vacation from the Gas Pump" are guaranteed to get their parking passes back in the fall. More than 300 people have already pre-registered, said Charles Carter, UCLA Transportation's communications analyst.

"You can try it for as little as 30 days, but we hope employees like it enough to keep riding," Carter said. "It's basically about two words: Try transit."