Jumping into the car pool Four Jackson Lab workers reaping the rewards of their method of transportation

The final door of Rita Poirier’s red Mercury Grand Marquis slammed shut just as the first rays of sunshine peeked over the horizon one recent day.

Inside the car, Poirier’s long earrings swayed as she chuckled at her three colleagues in the back seat, who were chattering about acceptable breakfast cuisine. Ice cream passed muster – “Hey, it’s milk,” the women concluded – as well as apple pie because you can never eat too much fruit.

For more than two years the daily discussion topics have changed, but the company has not.

Caroline Cushman was the most recent woman to join Jackson Laboratory’s “Carpool 1” some 21/2 years ago, and now every workday Poirier, of Holden, and Janice Von Brook and Carol Lamb, both of Hampden, meet at Cushman’s Holden home at 6:30 a.m. and car pool to work. They are among 13 car-pooling teams at Jackson Lab in Bar Harbor, putting them at the forefront of the fight against skyrocketing fuel costs.

“When Janice first came to me and asked to car pool I said, ‘Oh, I don’t really know, I don’t think so,'” said Poirier. “Then I finally agreed to try it for a day or two, and here we are eight years later.”

The Carpool 1 crew has turned car pooling into a science. The veterans rotate driving, each driving her own car to Bar Harbor one or two times a week. The science has translated into arithmetic that is a little easier on each woman’s pocketbook.

Poirier said she has calculated how much she saves by sharing trips: A 46-mile one-way trip and a car that gets 24 miles to the gallon results in using nearly 4 gallons of gas a day, or $14 roundtrip, she concluded.

“We worked hard to establish this before the current gas crisis,” said Lamb. “A lot of people now are just struggling going to work.”

Carey Kish, program manager for Go Maine, a statewide commuter services program, said that since gas prices have spiked to $3.50 a gallon and beyond, Maine people are trying several tactics to conserve money. Maine drivers have learned to pair up for trips to the grocery store and bank, designating a Saturday for errands, he said. Filling gas tanks only halfway is an illusory solution, he said.

Kish said his toughest job is convincing Maine commuters that car pooling does not mean surrendering independence. It does, however, require a behavioral change, he said.

“I don’t think it will be an issue any more with gas prices where they are at,” Kish said. “There was a point in time when trying to market car pooling in Maine was like trying to sell ice cubes to Eskimos. In the mid-’90s, gas prices were low, heating oil was low and we were in an upward tick of the economy. We have been tied to automobiles since the ’50s and it’s a growing trend. It’s just the way we operate.”

Since oil has skyrocketed to more than $100 a barrel, many Maine residents have caught the car-pooling bug. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina prompted the first gas spike, which resulted in 1,000 commuters signing up for the Go Maine car-pooling initiative, Kish said. The database holds more than 4,500 potential car-pooling candidates and recently 200 to 300 names are being added to the list per month, he said. Kish anticipates that Go Maine will soon have more than 5,000 residents registered.

At Jackson Lab, a seat in Carpool 1 is a highly coveted position. Lamb’s reserved seat could be viewed as a birthright, since she is the daughter of Von Brook, an original member. When a seat vacancy arose, Cushman was the lucky office mate who got the call to the car pooling big leagues. She was granted a “trial run,” which the other women joked could be revoked from the rookie at any time.

While en route to Bar Harbor on a recent morning, Von Brook disrupted her knitting in the back seat to share the perks of their program. The car pool is sacrosanct, she chuckled, professional joys and frustrations stay within the doors of the car pool, and the free therapist sessions are more cost-effective than the alternative.

“We were co-workers, but we didn’t really become friends until the car pool,” said Von Brook.

trobbins@bangordailynews.net

990-8074

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KEVIN BENNETT

Car poolers (from left) Carl Lamb of Hampden, Rita Poirier of Holden, Caroline Cushman of Holden and Janice Von Burke of Hampden grab their baggage from the trunk of Poirier’s car after arriving around 7:30 a.m. in the car poolers preferred parking lot at The Jackson Laboratory.