I recently had knee replacement surgery and was out on medical leave for six weeks. The day I was to return to work the elevator and escalator were both out of service at the BART stop near my office, and I made the unfortunate decision to take the stairs.

Photo by Mark Denton

I decided to take it slow, take breaks, and be careful… but at the very top, on the very last step, when I stepped down I felt a kind of pain like I’ve never felt before exploding in my new knee. I screamed. Like, horror movie murder screamed. Like stabbed in the gut by a unicorn horn screamed. Luckily a nice man stopped and helped me; he called an ambulance and waited with me until the EMTs arrived. I wish I’d had presence of mind to ask for his name, because I am so very grateful for this kind stranger who would bother to stop to assist a screaming woman at 16th Mission BART station. He even made it a point to watch my bags so they wouldn’t get stolen and advised me not to try to take even a small step backward or I’d fall back down the stairs. Major love to that guy. May his karma always be most excellent. Also, big shout out to the sweet, kind, funny EMTs. I love EMTs. They are true Unicorns.

At first I thought the implant had failed, but after a trip to the ER I discovered that my patella had snapped in half. Apparently this is a rare complication that occurs with knee replacement surgery. So, I had yet another surgery to repair the patella and had to have months of physical therapy after that.

©2013-2018 Marenlicious

When it was time to return to the office after being out on extended medical leave, I decided that I would not be taking BART ever again and instead started taking Lyft Line, and although it is cheaper than a regular Lyft it’s still pretty pricey – anywhere from $16-$30 one way depending on the time of day and whatever random whims influence “peak hour pricing.”

Hoping to find something a little cheaper, I turned to the Google and began to search carpooling options.

“Unicreep” by wytrab8

The first app I found was Scoop. It had pretty good ratings, so I installed it on my trusty Galaxy and set up my first ride request; I was excited to find that I was matched with a driver right away.  After several weeks of using Scoop, I found that it is a bit hit or miss whether you are matched or not. Usually I have better luck getting matched in the mornings. It costs me about $8 one way, which is more expensive than BART, but less expensive than Lyft Line, and after a little budget re-configuring I’ve made it work.

The second app I investigated is Waze Carpool. Waze is cheaper; I only pay around $4.20 one way. One of the things I don’t like about Waze is that it operates under the assumption that you are willing to be picked up/dropped off on a corner somewhere in the general vicinity of where you are going. As a disabled person, this doesn’t really work for me, so I have to specify that I need door to door rides, which does limit the number of ride matches. The other minus is that I’ve encountered more flaky people on Waze than on Scoop. However, I did meet three lovely ladies who carpool into SF three mornings a week who have taken me on as a semi-permanent rider on the mornings we are all going into the city. One of them even made my partner and me a loaf of bread. Very very sweet. So for that reason, I am grateful for Waze.

Another app that I installed is called Duet. I’ve only attempted to use it a couple times, but each time I was only matched with other riders looking for drivers, so I can’t really say whether it is a useful app or not.

So, every Sunday night I go on Scoop and Waze and set up my ride requests for the week. Waze let’s you know if you are matched earlier in the day/evening than Scoop does, so if I get matched on Waze I cancel the Scoop ride request. If not, I hope that Scoop will come through for me. I’d say I get matched about 50-70% of the time.

And when I don’t get a match on either apps I revert to Lyft Line. Luckily, my transportation benefits finally cover Lyft Line, so at least I can pay for it pre-tax, however, for some reason when I use my transportation benefit debit card to pay for a ride the wait is much longer than if I pay for it with my personal PayPal or debit card. I’m not sure why that is, but as someone who can’t stand for long periods of time without pain, it kinda sucks.

I’d love to hear other folks’ suggestions for carpooling options in the Bay Area. How do the rest of you Unicorns get to and from work each day?