In British Columbia, a private initiative spearheaded by a local foundation is helping to contain the problems of urban sprawl, toxic air and global warming - all products of our century-long love affair with the private automobile.
  Since 1992, the Jack Bell Foundation of Vancouver has been providing van-pool vehicles at low cost to commuters who are willing to make their work-day trips together. There are 91 Bell Foundation supported vans on the road in the Greater Vancouver region, and another 36 in other BC locations. Van pool users pay a monthly fee that averages around $110.00 per month, and the foundation covers fuel and maintenance costs.
  The van driver pays no monthly fee; in trade for the free transportation, that commuter drives, keeps the van gassed up using a Foundation credit card and arranges for repairs when needed. The van-pool members, typically introduced to each other by the Foundation staff, leave behind the private vehicles they would otherwise be taking to work. They are often residents of Vancouver suburbs badly served by mass transit. Everyone wins in this van pooling system- commuters, city and environment.
  The initiative comes at a time when over 16,000 Canadians each year are killed by effects of air pollution. Meanwhile, global warming (another by-product of the burning of fossil fuels in vehicles, power plants and industry) continues to threaten to melt polar ice caps, drown island nations and distort our climate balance in the new century.
  No one, least of all the Bell Foundation, would argue that subsidized van pooling will solve all of Canada's pollution, sprawl and greenhouse gas problems. But the modest success this program has achieved in the last decade suggests that van pooling programs might be one key to the transit fix so desperately needed in Canada.

Tom Sandborn's first book, Joyride to Hell: Dispatches from the Automobile Century, will be published this Spring by Douglas and McIntyre's GrayStone Books imprint.

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For more information about the Jack Bell Foundation van pool program in Vancouver, visit www.vcn.bc.ca/vanpool.

What do you think of the van pool initiative? Has anything like this been started in your community?
Straight Goods wants to know