The choice to live in rural Manitoba and work outside your community virtually necessitates the daily use of a personal vehicle—that is, until now. The Green Action Centre (GAC), based out of Winnipeg, wants Manitoba residents to know that rural carpooling isn’t just a good idea, it’s imperative if we’re going to begin the journey toward reversing the threats of climate change.
“As someone who grew up in rural Manitoba, I understand the dependency that rural communities have on vehicles,” says Bethany Daman, former Niverville resident and employee of the GAC. “I understand that trips to the city are inevitable and that cycling and walking aren’t practical commuting options. What are the alternatives if we want to protect the environment and our wallets? Carpooling is a great option.”
The GAC is a non-profit, non-governmental organization whose mandate since 1985 has been to promote greener living by providing environmental education as well as practical, environmentally sound solutions for households, workplaces, schools, and communities. Their primary focuses include commuting, composting and waste reduction, sustainable living, and resource conservation.
One of their most recent initiatives is the GoManitoba app, an online tool dedicated to helping individuals find other people interested in sharing their daily commute.
“With GoManitoba, we have one unified ride-matching system for all Manitobans to access, along with customized and individually managed subsites for workplaces to offer to their employees,” says Heather Mitchell of GAC. “By coordinating a central system where users can seek out matches [within] their workplace or throughout the entire region, the opportunities for success in finding a match are substantially increased.”
Mitchell says that data from the 2016 census indicates that 75 percent of Manitobans are sole occupants in vehicles heading to work or school on a daily basis. Only seven percent of commuters carpool.
“The consequences of this behaviour are quite bleak for our province and our future,” Mitchell says. “Infrastructure for vehicles is expensive to build and maintain, our roads are more and more clogged with drivers commuting from communities further and further away, and the quality of air around schools is poor due to the number of kids dropped off in vehicles, as opposed to walking, biking, or taking the bus to school.”
But it’s not just the environment and the infrastructure that will benefit from ride-sharing. Mitchell says that, for most Canadians, owning and operating a vehicle is their second-largest monthly expenditure, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
“If you include depreciation, owning your own vehicle costs between $8,600 and $13,000 a year,” says Mitchell. “Recently, Canadians have been noticing a jump in gas prices, and the climb isn’t about to end anytime soon. Carpooling allows you to share the cost of gas and parking, cutting your expenses by nearly 50 percent or more. The more occupants in your carpool, the more you save.”
Ride-sharing also appears to be an economical approach on a broader scale. Fewer cars on the roads could equate to a reduction in required government spending on maintaining existing infrastructure, the construction of new roads, and healthcare costs as air quality is improved. It could also be the answer to the ever-growing demand on fossil fuels and their alternatives.
“Even if commuters who regularly drive alone the majority of the week choose to carpool just once or twice per week, we could see substantial improvements,” Mitchell adds.
The GAC began the ride-share initiative by conducting workplace transportation surveys, the results of which indicated an interest in shared transportation. The problem seemed to be a lack of initiative or know-how in organizing a carpool.
Some Manitoba employers who understand the benefit of employee ride-sharing have attempted to pay for subscriptions to similar online programs in the past, or to create their own company carpooling database. According to Mitchell, these employers typically find that employee uptake is poor because matches are extremely limited. With the GoManitoba app, every employer can link into one database, and individuals will be able to access options beyond their workplace.
The GoManitoba app provides a quick, secure, and personal way to find commuting partners by simply setting up a profile and entering the addresses of your starting and ending points. Participants have the option of commuting with others from their workplace or campus, or with individuals who are simply travelling a similar route.
App users can also log their commutes and keep a regular eye out for potential new matches. Additionally, the app provides personalized mentoring should ride-share participants decide to carpool into Winnipeg and navigate the sometimes tricky public transit or cycling systems available to them from the drop-off point.
“Since graduating from high school, I’ve learnt a lot about climate change,” says Daman. “I find it pretty scary and, honestly, my response used to be avoidance. At some point, I realized that this response wasn’t enough. If I truly care about the effects of climate change, I needed to do something. I started out by making changes in my own life such as reducing my waste and choosing to walk, bike, bus, or carpool rather than drive. I would love for my work at GAC to result in lifestyles changes for [other] Manitobans.”
