Calgary’s Second Annual Rideshare Week kicked off this Monday at City Hall with breakfast, prizes and more. The program promotes carpooling and tries to get as many people as possible to carpool.
“You don’t have to carpool everyday,” said Commuter Connections’ Executive Director Anne Marie Thornton. “Even once or twice a week makes a big difference.”
www.carpool.ca offers a matching service for people who want to carpool. Clients fill out basic location information, and it finds other people who have similar information and similar routes to and from work or school.
“We work with U of C, Mount Royal College, SAIT and other schools as well,” said Thornton. “It’s not just people going downtown, it’s people going everywhere. There are already over 1,700 people using the service in Calgary.”
The goal of the website and the program is to eliminate any excuse people may have for not carpooling.
“Many people don’t carpool simply because they don’t know anyone in their area going to the same place as they are,” stated Thornton. “They can’t have this excuse anymore with the ride matching service that we offer.”
The City of Calgary is interested in this program from a traffic perspective. If everyone in Calgary carpooled once a week, the traffic would be reduced by 20 per cent. There are also environmental and monetary benefits to carpooling. Fewer cars mean less pollution, which is never a bad thing.