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reprint or license thisS.C. says no to car pools
1.5 million workers drive alone to their jobs, despite rising gas prices
By NOELLE PHILLIPS
nophillips@thestate.com
Car pooling doesn’t work for John Cadena.
Who would want to hang around the SCANA corporate office until 8:30 on a Friday night, waiting for Cadena?
“I can’t depend on someone else to bring me to work, and no one can depend on me to leave at the same time every day,” said Cadena, who works in the utility’s government affairs and economic development department.
Cadena is not alone in South Carolina when it comes to driving to work solo.
Even though gas prices have increased drastically over the past two years in the state — topping out at $3.15 per gallon a year ago this week because of Hurricane Katrina — South Carolinians are not changing their habit of driving alone to work.
With more people on the roads, the trips are taking longer.
In 2005, 1.5 million people drove to work alone, or 82 percent of South Carolinians who had a job and were old enough to have a license, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, released Tuesday. Nationally, 77 percent of the people drove to work alone.
The number of people in the state who drove alone to work rose 5.3 percent between 2000 and 2005. During the same time, the state’s work force grew by 4.7 percent.
The numbers reflect Americans’ refusal to give up the independence of driving alone, said Sarah Davis, a spokeswoman with AAA Carolinas.
“We like to do what we want and when we want to do it.”
Also, public transportation systems — especially in the Southeast — are not set up to cater to most workers, Davis said.
“Right now, the flexibility in the scheduling is just not there. Plus, there’s not a demand for it.”
Davis said workers could change their attitudes about car pooling. Sharing a ride two or three days a week would save gas money, she said.
Still, car pooling is growing in popularity in the state on a small scale. Last year, 213,000 of the state’s 1.85 million workers shared rides to work. That 11.5 percent is the highest in the state’s history, the census survey reported.
However, a car pool is impossible for Deborah Adams, who drives an hour every day from Springfield to Columbia to work as an executive assistant at S.C. Bank and Trust.
“I don’t know anybody from that area who comes this direction,” Adams said.
She and her husband have discussed trading in her Chevrolet Trailblazer for a more fuel-efficient car, but moving into Columbia is out of the question for the Springfield native.
So she’ll keep driving the 80-mile round trip to the bank where she began working 19 years ago when the corporate offices were in Orangeburg.
“It’s a good company, and they’re good people to work for — so I drive,” Adams said.
All this driving means S.C. residents are spending an average of five work-weeks’ worth of time — or 188 hours per year — commuting.
“That’s amazing, isn’t it?” said Rhonda Joyner, another executive assistant at S.C. Bank and Trust.
The Census Bureau’s survey found the average commute time in South Carolina was 23.6 minutes one way, up an average of two minutes this decade — but still better than the national average.
Joyner drives downtown from Chapin and estimates she spends about an hour driving each way. She passes time listening to WMHK, a Christian radio station.
“That’s a lot of time off my life in the long haul.”
Reach Phillips at (803) 771-8307. Chris Roberts, a USC journalism instructor, contributed.
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