SEQUIM – Something had to give.
Charlee Sandell drives a relatively fuel-efficient Honda Passport.
But in recent weeks, all-time highs in gasoline prices -which are flirting with the $4 per gallon mark – have sent her Sequim-to-Port Angeles commute costs to $6 a day.
Sandell, 58, knew she had to try something different.
She wondered how she might assemble a carpool.
Certainly there are other commuters smarting from $40 and $50 trips to the gas pump.
But so far, connections with such people have eluded her.
She doesn’t yet have the expertise to put up a Web site that would gather them.
And though Clallam Transit provides vans for groups of commuters, their costs are prohibitive unless 12 or more passengers get together to cover them, she said.
At 50 cents a mile for a van furnished by the agency, a van pool between Sequim and Port Angeles would cost about $15 a day, said Clallam Transit operations manager Frank Poulsen.
That includes the vehicle, maintenance and insurance as well as gas.
Seventeen groups of workers are using the service, he added.
They’re all going from Port Angeles to the prisons on the West End.
No east-county pools have formed.
So last week, Sandell boarded Clallam Transit’s larger, lumbering carpool, also known as the No. 30 Highway 101 commuter bus.
It’s not convenient at all, since it requires her to leave her house around 6:40 a.m. and doesn’t get her back home until after 7 p.m.
But at $1 each way, the price is right – and Sandell has discovered some perks on her rides to and from work.
She chooses to see them that way, anyhow.
“It’s interesting to see the cross-section of humanity on the bus,” she said.
On Monday morning Sandell, who’s lived in Sequim since 1989, rode with two people she knew: a neighbor on her way to jury duty in Port Angeles and a woman she hadn’t seen in years.
Then there are the “eco types,” Sandell added.
“Your renewable natural resources types,” who walk their talk about using public transit to conserve fuel.
“It’s not just about saving money,” said Sandell.
It’s also about doing something for planetary and personal health.
Sandell is getting more exercise these days: walking the five blocks to and from the Sequim Transit Center, and seven blocks to and from her office to the bus stop at Front and Race streets in Port Angeles.
At lunch time, she can add another outing to McPhee’s market.
“You get comfortable in your microcosm and you don’t step out of it,” Sandell mused.
“This is a stepping out of the box for me.”
Still, the commuter bus schedule isn’t compatible with Sandell’s work hours.
She has to be at her desk at 8 a.m., so must catch the 7 a.m. bus out of Sequim; on some days of the week she must work until 6 p.m., and there isn’t a bus home until 6:40 p.m.
“I think the reason more people don’t take the bus is the inconvenient times,” she said.
If Clallam Transit scheduled one more trip from Port Angeles to Sequim at 6:10 p.m. on weeknights, that would make a big difference to commuters like Sandell, she said.
Clallam Transit may revamp its schedules, but not quickly.
“This year, we’re going to do a comprehensive review,” said Poulsen.
“We’ll hire a consultant to come up with an overall picture of what to add and remove.”
The review should be complete by this fall, but it can take a year to secure funding for added buses and trips, he said.
Clallam Transit’s existing bus service is funded by a six-tenths of a cent sales tax.
The last time the agency conducted such a review was 2000, before Sequim gained its bloc of big-box stores – and their scores of workers, at least some of whom commute from Port Angeles and other places on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Ridership rose 6 percent from April 2006 to April of this year, Poulsen said.
A report of passenger numbers indicated that 19,718 trips were made last month on the U.S. Highway 101 commuter bus.
On another commuter bus, the Port Angeles-to-Forks No. 14, last month’s trips numbered 5,396, up 100 riders from last year.
Sandell, for her part, said she’ll keep taking the bus – and keep noticing its positive points.
“The buses are clean; they don’t smell. They’re a whole lot better than the rapid transit back east,” she said.
“The driver was very helpful.”
Sandell and her husband, now deceased, moved to Sequim from Stratford, Conn., where they often took trains to and from New York City.
She’s also doing more reading, having dived into “To the Heart of the Nile,” a nonfiction work by Pat Shipman.
And there are benefits to commuting with company: casual conversation, a look outside her usual sphere.
“You’re never too old,” said Sandell, “to change and make new friends.”
