North Bay transportation agencies team up for Commute 37 ride-share program

Regional transportation authorities have teamed to help would-be Highway 37 carpoolers find each other.

The pilot program, called Commute 37, was launched in May 2022 by Sonoma County Transportation Authority, the Napa Valley Transportation Authority, Transportation Authority of Marin and Solano Transportation Authority and is funded by a grant from Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

The program is currently reaching commuters through an advertising campaign on digital streaming services like Paramount Plus.

It was conceived, according to Dana Turréy, Senior Transportation Planner with Sonoma County Transportation Authority, as a way to immediately address the corridor’s traffic problems ahead of a broader, long-term plan to improve the route. The agency works with the county’s nine cities and board of supervisors to maintain and improve local roads and transportation issues.

The route linking Highway 101 Novato and Interstate 80 in Vallejo has an 80-minute average delay during peak commute hours and is prone to flooding, according to Turréy, who said plans in development to improve the corridor largely involve costly and time-consuming construction projects.

“There was a study done a few years back that showed that there’s a fairly high percentage of people on that corridor are already carpooling,” Turréy said. “The four North Bay transportation authorities got together to figure out if we could do something to encourage more people to carpool, and reduce the number of cars that are driving on 37, and make it easier for people to commute on that corridor.”

Commute 37 uses the Ride Amigos platform, which can be accessed via desktop or free mobile app, to match commuters. The dynamic platform suggests matches riders based on route and schedule.

During the program’s first six months, it generated 3,464 carpool trips encompassing 124,099 miles of travel, according to Turréy

Commuters interested in signing up can go to commute37.com to register by county, and download the RideAmigos app via the Apple App Store and Google Play.

For more information on long-term plans to improve traffic issues on State Route 37, go to scta.ca.gov/resilient37.

Commute 37