As companies spread out more, fewer and fewer Americans are carpooling. Cars have also become cheaper to own, further decreasing the number of people who share their wheels.

According to Census Bureau, the number of workers car-pooling has gone down by almost half since 1980, surprising city planners who believed that special high-occupancy lanes and discounted parking would push more people to share a ride. Today less than 12 percent of all drivers car pool nationally.

The numbers have fallen across the board, according to an article in the NY Times”

For example, the car-pooling rate fell by more than half since 1980 in Rochester and its suburbs, as well as in Worcester County, Mass., and in the suburbs of Kansas City. Even in San Diego County, Calif., the state where modern car-pooling began, the rate was down by more than a third.

While the general trend is terrible, given that a decrease in car-pooling means increased traffic congestion and CO2 emissions (not to mention increased fuel usage), the silver lining is that mass transit use has gone up. In the Washington area, for example, mass transit commuters went up by 3 percent.

An increasing number of people are also working from home, removing more cars from our streets (an estimated 600,000 people work from home at least one day a week). And the census data also show that black, Hispanic and Asian commuters car-pool far more than white workers.

Of course far more has to be done if we want to see a difference. At the end of the day, if people have a car — most people are going to use it. The only way to really get people to give up their cars, if gas prices go up. In 2008 when our gas prices were higher, mass transit usage went up. The DOE is predicting that fuel prices are only going to rise in the next few years, so unless people switch to alternative-fuel cars, hopefully car pooling will rise again too. Either way, we’ll take one of the alternatives!