Are there greater needs in the fields of transportation that can provide savings returns from infrastructure investments?

For example, increases in rush hour traffic volume are typically handled by widening highways with more lanes. Ride-sharing is beneficial to improving lane efficiency, and vans can be shown to be the most efficient of the ride-share options.

Light rail can also be considered as a ride-share, and 200 passengers per train at five-minute intervals correspond to 2,400 passengers per hour. However, single passenger vehicles at 1.5-second intervals match this value, without the inconveniences.

Each 10-passenger van, however, eliminates nine single passenger autos. A gradual introduction of vans delays the need for a new lane, and if one out of every three commuters were in a van, three lanes of single passenger cars could be transported within two lanes.

Buses are, of course, efficient transporters and are necessary in dense, parking-limited communities. However, the automobile is always the preferred mode in suburban communities.

The use of vans can, however, also simplify the life of the commuter. The existence of one van within a pickup locale of 10 commuters simplifies end-to-end travel time and also significantly reduces costs per commuter.

The gradual introduction of vans can reduce or eliminate the need for further lane expansion. And save dollars. And reduce CO2.

Suppose the state government were to set aside $45,000 for the purchase of each van, and for its insurance, over 10 years. The operator of the van, also a commuter, would be responsible for check-list requirements of fueling and maintenance, and would be reimbursed by the state.

The van passengers would pay for gasoline, plus other subsidies for maintenance and such, averaged over the entire fleet. Even if a van were to achieve only 15 mpg, as compared to 30 mpg for a single passenger auto, the cost savings for the van commuter would be a significant inducement.

How much? For a 50-mile round trip commute for 10 years, 250 days a year and $3-a-gallon gasoline, the gas savings alone for nine paying van passengers in 250 vans will be approximately $9,700 for each van rider.

This communal gift of vans saves money not only for the state but also for the commuter/consumer. It even saves parking area at the business locations. Web programs can serve to correlate passenger pick-up and drop-off locations and times. Round-trip commute costs could be in the low single digits per day, even better than a bus.

Why hasn't this been tried? It has been tried by the N.C. Department of Transportation in a very successful program funded a few years back by the federal government; and reported on by The N&O. Commuters loved it, and even volunteered to pay for all of the van costs, but the plan was never renewed. DOT preferred to seek more dollars for buses.

But does the van plan create jobs? One would hope so. Genuine savings are realized by the state. After all, it is still collecting those road taxes for the lanes that are no longer needed. Hire some teachers, for example.

For $450 million, 10,000 vans could be purchased and 240 miles of double-lane expansion - greater than the distance from Raleigh to Charlotte - could be avoided. Such values cannot be ignored.

William T. Lynch, Ph.D., lives in Apex.