Never have so few commuters enjoyed so much attention.
Drivers and passengers trickled into the dingy garage beneath the MacArthur Freeway in Oakland’s Grand Lake neighborhood early Tuesday, hoping to take part in the well-publicized revival of the East Bay’s casual carpool.
Crews from three TV stations, two radio stations and one online news site greeted them. And by Camille Bermudez, the Alameda resident who has nearly single-handedly organized the carpool relaunch.
As drivers and riders began to roll into the squat concrete structure on Lake Park Boulevard at 7 a.m., Bermudez played the role of carpool concierge and emcee.
Bermudez greeted other commuters like old friends, gave newbies a heads-up on how the system is supposed to work at the Lake Park location, and even introduced reporters to arriving carpoolers.
“We just had one successful carpooler!” she said after the first of half a dozen or so carpools rolled out toward a freeway on-ramp. “We’re thrilled to be back.”
“This is Chuy,” she said, introducing a new acquaintance, San Ramon resident Chuy Perez, as he pulled up in an SUV. “Chuy is a casual carpooler from years before, and he just told me he’s been commuting for about 40 years.”
Perez, a technician for AT&T, said he’s been perplexed that it has taken so long for the carpool to return.
“I’ve periodically been looking online to see what’s been going on,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why it’s taken so long to get it back.”
Ray Lee, who drives from the East Bay to teach at San Francisco’s A.P. Giannini Middle School, echoed that sentiment.
“Probably the last two years, occasionally I’d go: ‘Hey, is this still a thing?'” Lee told reporters, who clustered at his driver’s side window. “… So I’m crossing my fingers that this is working out.”
Riders didn’t materialize for Perez and Lee, and both of them wound up leaving for the city solo.
Drivers who arrived a little later, however, were luckier.
Joshua Reiten said he has been waiting to pick up riders for the first time since COVID-19 stay-at-home and social distancing orders ended the four-decade-old casual carpool in March 2020. He said he was drawn back by all the advantages he remembers from the past.
“I just loved that it was seemingly always available, inexpensive, often more convenient, often more comfortable than BART or a bus,” Reiten said. “It was a great way to catch up on the news, because often they would have news playing in the car.”
Not that rides in the before-times were always perfect. Reiten mentioned one particularly “uncomfortable ride.”
“I got into a car, and the woman who was driving had her bird loose in the car,” Reiten said. “When I stepped in, I saw the bird flying around. The bird cage was next to me, in the back. There was bird … mess … all over the place, and I immediately got out and said, ‘I’m not riding in this car.'”
Two Oakland residents who caught rides into the city on Tuesday morning said they see casual carpooling as something that can help build and sustain community.
“I’m a really big advocate of community support and mutual aid,” Brionna Lewis, a marketing strategist, said. “I think this is a way of people helping people in ways that sometimes our government can’t support. I know they’re cutting and changing bus routes and things like that, and I feel like this is a great way for folks to step up and support each other.”
Jahan Sagafi, an attorney, said he always appreciated the efficiency and comfort of the casual carpool.
But he also appreciated “the feeling that it was a community effort.”
“And not just a community of people who already know each other and are loyal to each other, but people who don’t know each other can pull together for that one moment and help each other out,” Sagafi said. “I think that’s very Bay Area, and that’s kind of one of the wonderful things about living in this community.”
All told, Tuesday’s relaunch involved about half a dozen carpools — including three in which journalists rode and one more driven by organizer Camille Bermudez.
While that may seem like a modest result, the mode’s advocates recalled that until now, a system that once brought thousands of people to work each day was pretty much dead.
“No one’s done what Camille just managed to do,” said Greg Riessen, a traffic engineer who’s developed his own carpooling app. “This is a real accomplishment.”
Bermudez said she considers the half-dozen carpools that made it to the city a success. “I’m absolutely thrilled to see the momentum picking up,” she said.
And she said she’ll be greeting carpoolers at the Grand Lake garage site, at 533 Lake Park Ave., every morning this week.
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