Riding out the hard times

63 percent of us are driving less

Kristen Crosson gets a nifty 45 miles per gallon in her hybrid Prius, but she really cut her gas costs when she turned the car into a car pool.

On her lunch hour at the State Office of Budget and Management, Crosson logs miles and prices on a spreadsheet and checks the numbers with a noisy adding machine.

She bills Donna Aldridge and Karena Bailey, her new car-pool buddies, for their share of the gas.

"I was spending $16.62 a week for gas and parking to drive by myself," said Crosson, 32, who lives in Morrisville, 14 miles from her downtown Raleigh office. "Now, with Donna and Karena riding, my cost each week will be $6.52."

The financial stakes are higher for commuters who depend on less-efficient cars for longer drives to work. Stunned by this year's surge in gas prices -- a record $4.05 a gallon last week for self-service regular -- thousands of Triangle residents are searching harder than ever for alternatives to driving alone.

Car pooling -- sharing the daily drive with neighbors, co-workers or strangers -- is one solution. More than 9,000 Triangle residents -- up from 6,500 a year ago -- are looking for car-pool partners at Share the Ride NC, an online ride-sharing matchmaker service.

Aldridge, a 39-year-old single mother with four children, drives a hulking SUV that uses about 10 gallons a week -- about $41 at current prices -- just for her 16-mile trip to work. Now, riding with Crosson, she's saving about $34 a week.

Their car pool became a threesome last week with the addition of Bailey, who lives in Cary.

"I would never have thought to car pool for a 20-minute ride in the past, when gas cost a lot less," said Bailey, 46, who will save about $14 a week. "But now it seems like a long way for me to drive alone."

Drivers troll for mates

Car pooling isn't worth the money if it isn't convenient. A car-pool buddy is someone who lives near you and works near you -- or near your route between home and work -- and has a similar schedule.

Keith Hargraves is looking hard for that someone.

Hargraves, 44, lives south of Garner and works in East Raleigh. He spends $100 a week to fuel his Chevy pickup for the 22-mile drive.

He has tacked up fliers near his workplace on Yonkers Road. He has posted his information on ride-sharing Web sites. A friend promised to mention him on an employees' Web site at WakeMed.

Surely, Hargraves says, there is someone who works near his office and lives within 5 or 10 miles of his home -- someone who would want to car pool with him.

"So far," he said, "we're just not hooking up."

Debbie Knight's job with the U.S. Postal Service was transferred from Raleigh to Greensboro five years ago. She still makes the 85-mile drive from Raleigh each morning, spending $100 on gas for her Prius each week.

Knight, 48, may have to quit her job or get her husband to move with her to Greensboro unless she can find a car-pool buddy. She has put notices online. She is thinking about printing a desperate message on the side of her car.

She thought her prospects were looking up when she began talking with a man who had just rear-ended her car at a stoplight in Durham.

"It turned out he worked right down the road from me in Greensboro, and I tried to talk him into car pooling with me," Knight said. "He probably thought I was trying to pick him up."

Under the same roof

Chien-Lung Wu of Cary found his car-pool partner at Delta Products in Research Triangle Park, where he works. After four years of making the 14-mile drive alone, Wu was spending about $60 a week for gas.

Now he rides with Chester Hsieh of Raleigh, who also works for Delta Products. Hsieh comes to Wu's house each morning, and they take turns driving to RTP.

"I like it, I really like it," said Wu, 43. "And it's not just about the money. When we drive, we can talk. And it reduces air pollution. So we said, 'Why not?' "

Erin Dzielecki of Wake Forest works with her new car-pool mate -- and lives with him, too.

For three years, she and her husband, Kevin, drove separately to their jobs at Bayer Crop Science in RTP. It's a 30-mile trip. Driving two cars was costing the couple about $140 for gas each week.

Now they've cut that to about $90. But it wasn't easy. The demands of their jobs -- she had to be in the office early one day last week for an 8 a.m. meeting -- sometimes skew their schedules.

And there's child care. Someone has to drop the Dzieleckis' 1-year-old daughter at the day care center in the morning and pick her up in the afternoon.

Now, most days, they do it together. They leave her Honda Pilot SUV at home and put the baby seat in the back of his more fuel-efficient coupe.

"We've had to make adjustments, but it's worth it when we reach for our wallets at the end of the month," said Dzielecki, 30. "I would say it's saving us $200-plus a month to commute together.

"It's almost painful when I have to pull the Pilot out of the garage and drive separately, because I know it's costing me an arm and a leg to do it."