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When news broadcasts talk about the area’s most ominous nickname “Cancer Alley,” reporter voiceovers are often accompanied by footage of a massive oil refinery wheezing columns of pollutants into a hazy blue sky. They rarely show the long lines of single commuters honking at traffic from behind the wheels of gas-guzzling Land Rovers and Expeditions.

Maybe they should.

“Big Industry is highly regulated,” says Jean Kelly, public information officer at DEQ. “It’s all these mobile sources, cars, that are likely keeping us from meeting EPA standards.”

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 78% of trips to and from work are made in single-passenger vehicles. Nowhere is this statistic truer than in metro Baton Rouge.

Chris Roberie, an administrator at DEQ, says significant strides have been made to reduce industrial emissions statewide, so the department is turning its attention to mobile on-road and off-road emissions. The Capital City is not likely to see light rail or bus rapid transit systems anytime soon, so for now carpooling is the simplest way of taking cars off the road. Knowing this, Kelly spearheaded a recent lobby for a $100,000 grant, money that DEQ will use in 2008 to promote carpooling across the state.

Next time you are nudging forward on I-10 or I-12 in rush hour, look at the cars around you. You’ll likely count five or six single-occupancy vehicles before spotting your first passenger.

Beyond the environmental benefits, most people can imagine the money they would save by carpooling to work. They imagine. Tiffany Dickerson, a public information officer at the DEQ, doesn’t have to because she knows how much carpooling saved her last year: more than $1,100. She uses her Discover card and only her Discover card every time she fills her tank. In 2005 she drove alone to work each day and spent more than $2,600 on gas. Last year her husband, Carlos, took a job with the Division of Administration. Both offices are downtown, so they decided to ride together. The Dickerson’s 2006 Discover card total: $1,477.35. That’s huge considering the U.S. Department of Labor reports that a typical U.S. household spends 18% of its income on driving costs, more than they spend on food.

Marian Mergist, executive assistant to the secretary, says carpooling to work with her husband saves her even more. “We don’t usually have money for vacations, but last year we were able to rent a condo at the beach, and it’s because I had extra money.”

When gas prices began their swift climb to $3 per gallon a few years ago, Mergist searched for others who might want to carpool with her and her husband. DEQ has a button on its Web site labeled “ride share.” She clicked it. All of the carpooling information on the site was outdated by at least seven years, she says. Mergist was told to call the Capital Region Planning Commission, but she didn’t get much help there. “There was really nothing out there for people to look for other people who want to carpool,” she says.

In March 1995 the planning commission began its rideshare program to connect potential carpoolers with others nearby. To date only 329 names are in the database. Ride share coordinator Perry Feralise says the department depends completely on signs posted off I-10 at the Highland exit, and I-12 at the Airline exit to promote the program. The signs display the number 344-RIDE, which rings at the planning commission. Feralise then mails an application to the caller.

“There’s no direct goal,” he says. “We just want as many as possible. The biggest obstacle is that people want their cars. It’s that simple. They don’t want to give up their freedom.”

Some state workers have given up a little freedom in exchange for other benefits from carpooling. The Dickersons use their ride time together to plan evenings and weekends and to connect with each other. “It gives us that time after work to ourselves before we get home with the kids,” Carlos Dickerson says.

Paulette Villere and Barbara Williamson have been carpooling from Point Coupee Parish to their state jobs every day for more than a decade. Co-workers jokingly chide the now-close friends for being so inseparable.

By and large, though, carpooling is not popular, and statistically speaking, it might not ever be. National carpooling network site erideshare.com has 14 current listings for the Baton Rouge area. If sharing rides is going to make a comeback, there must be multiple work-based incentives. Reserved parking spaces and commuter tax benefits are just two ideas that have been implemented in other states. Children’s Hospital & Regional Medical Center in Seattle pays monthly bonuses to carpoolers, vanpoolers and bicyclists, and offers the use of an on-site flex car.

Anyone who takes the interstate to work now knows our highways are already over capacity. Designating a specific lane for High Occupancy Vehicles—usually three people, but sometimes just two—will only compound the traffic problem.

“Encouraging people to carpool would certainly help, but placing the limitations of an HOV lane right now is not feasible,” says Mark Lambert, spokesman for the Department of Transportation and Development. “There’s not enough roadway. You’d need a whole lot more concrete out there.”

Our current interstates were not designed with HOV in mind, but what about the proposed loop? Though still in the planning phase, representatives with the Baton Rouge Loop committee say the five-parish traffic loop will likely be a toll road and therefore not run at full capacity, so HOV lanes are not being seriously considered, yet.

Tammy Morgan spent five years living near Washington, D.C., and in that time put less than 30,000 miles on her car, thanks to public transit and carpooling. Now she serves as the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Coordinator for the East Baton Rouge Parish Department of Public Works.

“Baton Rouge is growing exponentially, and people have not come to grips with that,” Morgan says. “People working in our metro area have long commutes—some 30 miles one way to the job site—so carpooling is a good idea for those who can.”