Looks like the cost of a trip across the lake here in Seattle may be going up.  Local coverage in the Seattle PI.  This would not be the first time tolls were charged on Seattle's 520 bridge, though it's been awhile since the toll booths were removed.

We're toll fans here at Goose.  Not because we like spending more money, but because more explicit pricing is one of the best ways to reduce traffic congestion. 

From Daily Candy, December 10th, 2007

Ride, Sally, Ride
You can pick your friends, your car, and even your nose. But you can’t pick your nose when your friends are in your car.

Which better not be the reason you’re still gas guzzling alone across I-90.  Time to sack it up, sticky fingers. And give high-tech hitchhiking a try with Goose Networks.

Unlike traditional carpooling, the genius service doesn’t require planning ahead. Register online, send a text just before you’re ready to go, and they’ll text you back to let you know if anyone in your network is headed in the same direction.

Riders and drivers meet at prearranged pick-up points (so nobody gets your home address). And there’s minimal drama if you’re running late (Goose connects sharers anonymously via cell phone).

Limit your rideshare network to friends or colleagues or roll the dice for a sexy stranger. Not that you’re doing it to find a date.

But who nose?
 

From Sustainable Industries, October 2nd, 2007

Thumbing a Ride
Think of it as online dating for the traffic-impaired. With a new twist on car-sharing, for-profit companies are paying people to share the fast lane.

Founded by 24-year-old former Microsoft engineer Nick Shiftan, Goose Networks sends text messages to drivers in the Seattle area who share the same route to work. Then, the company rewards those who choose to carpool with cash.

After proving the system encouraged one out of 20 Microsoft employees to carpool, Goose Networks earned a two-year contract with the Washington State Department of Transportation aimed at eliminating 322 single occupancy vehicles from state freeways daily. “When most states are spending money on asphalt and building new bridges, Washington state is spending money on text messaging and social networks,” Shiftan says. “It’s pretty innovative on their part.”

From Seattle Magazine, April 2007 (print only)

“Here’s hoping this state-of-the-art hitchhiking catches on!”        

From the Seattle Times, January 1st, 2007

Goose Networks helps corporations encourage employees to take alternative ways to get to work other than to drive alone…

Says company founder, Nick Shiftan, “While I was living in Belltown, I passed a friend of mine almost everyday on the way to work. I thought if only I knew which one of my friends was driving from Belltown to Microsoft at the same time. That was when the spark went off and led me to found Goose Networks.”

From Seattletest, December 13th, 2006

Actually, your cellphone probably looks like an electronic thumb already.  We mention the cellphone, because you’ll need it to text your way into your new carpooler’s lifestyle.  Alan Durning did a Daily Score post about Seattle’s Goose Networks the other day, and at first we thought, huh, no way.

Now we’ve looked into it (i.e., visited their site), and maybe it’s not so crazy.  Basically, you join the service, and then when you need a ride somewhere, you text Goose Networks with your destination.  Then an underpaid algorithm sorts through where other people say they’re going, matches you up with your best bet, and delivers directions on how to meet up.  We understand it’s not legal to be paid for giving rides to strangers unless your car is a taxi cab, so the carrot here for drivers is that the passenger splits the bill for gas.  This all happens back on Goose Networks servers — no money changes hands in the car. (Though as we type this, we can imagine a lot of fascinating entrepreneurial uses for a system where two people get into a car and a fee is deducted from a server located elsewhere.)

And of course driver and passenger would enjoy the benefits of the HOV lane — primarily, make rude gestures to everyone parked in traffic.  Seems like it ought to be appealing, especially for Microsofties and Boeingers, who have an insta-network already.

A much more informal system of this is in place on the Berkeley-to-San Francisco commute; people just meet up at “casual carpools.”  But they’re all hippies down there and probably know each other from the community hot tub.  How excited will Seattle drivers be at having someone they don’t know spill a venti all over the back seat?

“And of course driver and passenger would enjoy the benefits of the HOV lane — primarily, make rude gestures to everyone parked in traffic.”

From metro(spokane), December 12th, 2006

Over on the westside o’ the state, namely King County, auto congestion can be a bear of a problem, fortunately problems often result in innovation.  The problem is caused primarily by the single-occupancy-vehicle (SOV).  Anti-transits loathe any bus/train that isn’t filled to the brim with riders, and is often the primary argument against funding more transit versus road expansion.  The same capacity issue, however, is present with SOVs-one driver + four seats = wasted capacity.  Enter GOOSE Networks.

Goose Networks marries the increasing popularity of mobile text-messaging to match up riders with drivers who have excess capacity and want to share a trip-in ‘real time’.  Send a text message, enter the GOOSE user pool, and rider and driver are matched.  Drivers using GOOSE for a trip are automatically reimbursed for 50% of the trip’s gas cost.  With fuel prices inching up, it makes for a pretty good incentive to rideshare.

From Seattle Business Monthly, December 2006 (print only)

"GOOSE’s ‘high-tech edge’ may finally provide an alternative for those tired of watching cars whiz past [them] in the carpool lanes"
 

From Sightline's Daily Score, December 2006

From a community-wide perspective, high-tech hitch-hiking would conserve a lot of resources. The more that people share rides, the fewer moving vehicles are required in our cities. And the fewer vehicles, the less fuel gets burned, the fewer collisions happen, and the less congestion strikes our streets.

From The Harvard Crimson, September 28th, 2006

“There are only so many hours each day you are sitting in front of your computer. You have your cell phone on you 24 hours a day.”