Riversiders Carpool

While our transit mode share out here may be abysmally low (I calculated it something around .1%), we apparently lead the nation in car-pooling. Via Xing Columbus, Census Bureau stats put the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (most people's definition of the "Inland Empire" in statistics) number 1 among the 50 largest metros for car-pooling, with 16.1% of all auto commuters sharing a ride in to work.

This is admirable, but it also belies one of those myths about why transit doesn't work in the suburbs. People are always saying that Americans won't ride transit because they value their privacy so very highly. Well, nearly 1 in 5 Riversiders give up that privacy on their work trip. We don't ride transit out here, not because of the sharing-the-vehicle aspect of it, but because our built environment is so very bad, and our commutes so very long.