Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Through Ride Shares

My name is Polina and I am one of the three young professionals behind GreenXC-Ride-Sharing Cross Country to Protect National Parks. Given that we have chosen ride-sharing as our means of transportation cross-country I have had the chance to do an extensive amount of research on what a ride-share is, how to go about doing it and the importance of ride-sharing in reducing our carbon footprint.

What is a ride-share: A ride-share is another word for a carpool and it is when individuals that are leaving the same destination and looking to get to the same final destination share one ride rather than each driving separately. For more information on what a ride share is read this post.

How does this help the environment: Aside from the benefit of saving money by sharing a ride (gas is expensive!) ride-shares also help protect our environment by limiting the amount of negative emissions from using one car instead of several.

How do you find a ride-share:

1. Craigslist Ride-Share section. Every city has one and they are extremely helpful in finding others that are looking for rides. BE CAREFUL and make sure you do a background check on people before getting in a car with them.

2. Facebook Groups- Search facebook for ride-share groups that are specific to your city or a city that you are looking to get to.

3. Twitter- There are specific twitter pages that help people with ride-shares. My suggestion would be to search twitter for specific terms (Ride Share Los Angeles) and see what comes up. Check out this twitter account for updates on rideshares: @Rideshare_USA

4. Ride-Share Websites- There are usually websites for carpooling and ride-shares for every community so do a google search for your specific city. Example of national site: http://www.erideshare.com/

5. Tribes- http://rideshare.tribe.net/

6. State/Local Government Initiatives- Many local governments promote the idea or carpooling/ridesharing and you can often times find information specific to your city on the government website.

7. Meet-up groups: There are meetup groups specific to finding people to share rides with especially for specific communities.

If you have any additional ideas please feel free to add! We hope that more people pick up ride-sharing and help protect our earth.