As a bonus, she gets to decompress with nine other women who also work at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, so that by the time she faces her family, she's relaxed.
"It kind of gives you a cool-down time if you've had a bad day," Porter said while on her way home this past week.
Porter is one of more than 3,000 Utah workers who have joined forces in UTA's custom rideshare van-leasing project that has become so successful the agency is scrambling to secure more vans and reduce a one-year wait list.
UTA doesn't advertise the service, said Scott Miklos, the van pool rideshare supervisor. Rather, agency marketing specialists visit companies to explain how the transit option can save money for employees and employers while also saving millions of driving miles.
Madelyn Roundy, a human resources worker for Autoliv, a global auto safety device manufacturer, got on board. She convinced her employer the van scheme was a good idea after it closed its Ogden plant nearly two years ago and transferred 13 production lines to Brigham City, a 50-mile round trip from Ogden. Employees didn't want to move, but dreaded the long trip to work.
She told her bosses all they had to do was allow the employees to take pre-tax payroll deductions to pay for the van pools. Because the Internal Revenue Service allows companies to deduct up to $105 per worker per month tax-free, the company would pay less in payroll taxes. In turn, the employees had less taxable income and saved transportation dollars.
Now she manages 11 van pools, with two more due to start up this week.
"I have not even promoted this. But the more gas prices go up, the more people are interested in getting on a van," Roundy said.
In 1997, UTA leased out 27 vans. Last year the agency leased 246 vans and saved 35 million vehicle miles, Miklos said. Since 2002, the program has saved nearly 89 million miles. The cost to participants is about 4 cents per mile. Each van pool includes at least two members who are designated drivers.
"We have probably close to 80 groups waiting for the 27 new vans I will have this year," he said, adding he is trying to persuade UTA to purchase 30 more from its own funds to satisfy demand.
Miklos figures that Autoliv van pool riders already saved 680,000 vehicle miles during the first six months of this year and at least $5,000 in payroll taxes per year. The eight Veterans Administration vans saved 484,000 miles for the 6-month period.
Jim Peterson, a VA employee and driver of a van pool whose members live around Ogden, has been using this customized transit since 1981, when the Utah Department of Transportation managed a different program with the same goals.
Back then, UDOT gave the groups no-interest loans to buy their vehicles. Peterson said his group ran two vans into the ground before signing on with the UTA lease deal five years ago.
The longest round trip drive of any of the van pools is 232 miles. That van carries Dugway workers from the Ogden area who have customized their ride with a DVD player and individual headsets for movie-viewing. UTA this year also arranged for a group of Zion National Park employees to van pool from Hurricane and La Verkin even though those cities are hundreds of miles from UTA's service area.
One big difference between the van pools and other types of transit is everyone has at least one thing in common: their employer. That makes for instant camaraderie, but doesn't necessarily mean perpetual harmony.
Roundy doesn't ride a van herself - "My schedule's too weird," she said - but on occasion has moderated disputes that arose within the van pools, which tend to center on the drivers' styles.
"We've kind of had to say, 'You're scaring people, you're going too fast,' but really not too much of that," she said.
Renee Givens, who shares a van with Lisa Porter, said their group wasn't always all women.
"We started out with four guys," she said. The last one who left was so worried the women wouldn't be able to handle the commute he followed them all the way to work before letting go.
Peterson said his group has evolved into a mild bunch.
"All the ones that were loud and boisterous went to that van we call the Fun Bus," he said.
Earl Taylor, the main driver for a van pool of 10 Hill Air Force Base employees, doesn't mind a little fun - his van sports a dashboard-mounted rubber deer head revered as mascot and protector - but he takes his responsibility seriously.
"My rule is, if I'm driving, don't bother me. Just go to sleep, relax, whatever. I listen to the radio and pay attention to the road," he said. "I drive just because I like to drive. I trust myself more than anybody else. I feel like I'm taking care of them a little."
Taylor used to carpool, but decided to switch to vans after going through five cars in 10 years. Now, he and the other men in his van each pay about $150 per month for their transportation, or about $100 less than he would driving alone. They've built up a surplus of $1,700 they will use to buy new tires and pay for other services that are billed directly to UTA, which pays the bills out of the communal kitty. Drivers pay for gas with a gas card that also draws from the account.
"UTA has been really good to work with," Taylor said. "Driving the freeway like we do, you get a rock chip, you tell them you've got a cracked windshield, you take it in and get it back the next day."
The vans generally only have a few stops, but the groups won't necessarily know new members before picking them up.
Once, Givens said, a man they didn't know got on at one of the regular VA hospital stops.
"He sat there with his hands on his briefcase and didn't say a thing," she said. Finally he spoke up, to request assurance the van would indeed take him to the airport. The women made sure it did.
State's van pools reduce traffic, let co-workers wind down on the road
Participants save money by giving cars a break
Van pools are made up of 10 to 15 people, some of whom are the designated drivers. They lease the vans from the Utah Transit Authority, which purchases them with federal funds aimed at reducing traffic congestion. The van pool members pay into accounts that UTA manages for them. For about 4 cents per mile per person, everything is covered - the vehicle, insurance, fuel, inspections, licensing, maintenance and repair. In contrast, the American Automobile Association in 2004 calculated that the cost of a Ford Taurus SEL being driven 15,000 miles per year was 52.1 cents per mile. The figure included fuel, maintenance, tires, insurance, license and registration, depreciation and finance charges. But the gas price in that formula was only $1.47 per gallon, more than a dollar per gallon less than today's price. UTA can buy 12 vans for the price of one bus. A van costs around $27,000. Its life is either eight years or 110,000 miles. Those vans can either be sold or, if they are in good enough shape, kept as loaners to groups that have theirs in the shop. Federal employees pay for their rides through vouchers that allow them up to $105 per month for transportation. The subsidy comes from a law Congress passed to reduce congestion and avoid the cost of building more parking lots or pay mileage reimbursement. - Patty Henetz
