By Becca Lemire
I thought Rideshare was the norm these days, but after bringing it up at the latest She Does The City staff meeting, to be met with blank stares and a “ride-what?”, I realized it wasn’t as commonplace as I thought. So for all of you out there who have never treaded past the bus, train or plane when travelling and who don’t drive this info is for you! For my fellow ride-sharers, please leave Rideshare stories as a comment! We want to hear about it.

Toronto to Montreal is one of the busiest and most established routes for Rideshare in eastern Canada. I’ve travelled that route dozens of times, and I’ve also taken it from Montreal to Boston and back. Generally the prices from TO to MTL are $25-40 dollars one-way, and can be a bit more if you request door to door service. This time I got lucky and found a ride for $40 with door drop-off in MTL. Some rides are professionals who drive mini-vans back and forth all week, and others are just people with an extra spot or two. If you have an extra seat on your road trip, offering it up can pay for gas. All kinds and colours of humans use it to get around and I’ve shared rides with literally every kind of person you can imagine. If it makes you nervous, maybe try it with a friend. When looking for a ride use common sense, give your travel and ride info, including an estimated arrival time and a promised ‘got here safe’ text, to a third party ahead of time, follow your intuition, and if “John” is breathing heavily and asks you what you’re wearing, hang up the fucking phone.

Go to http://www.erideshare.com/ or http://www.craigslist.org/ and click “rideshare” in the top left corner under the “community” section. If you’re looking for a ride and can’t find the right ad for you, post one! On this most recent of rides, I shared it with a trans-gendered person named Alaska. A PR snob, private school teacher, Bob Dylan-wannabe, tons of students, mothers and young children, my friends, Juicy n’ Uggs girls, and female PhD student are others. The worst Rideshare I’ve had happened going from MTL-TO and the driver was a fat man in full religious garb who called everyone “babies”. Not in a condescending way, but like it was his pet name for all his customers: “Ok, pee-pee break, babies!” He couldn’t fathom why I wasn’t married. His mini-van was filthy and he stopped every 10 minutes to buy junk food and sodas. Other than that, every other one has been clean and very time-efficient.

The thought of driving to another city with a bunch of random people may make you tremble with awkwardness or fear of the unknown, but it’s really very calm and casual. It’s kind of like community car-pooling in the broader sense. We have to adapt to big cities somehow, and this is just one way. People just want to get where they’re going, and it’s timelier than the bus because there’s no stopping, other than mutually-agreed upon pee-breaks or gas-fill-ups. The lady I drove with this time said she goes back and forth several times a month from TO-MTL, and said she doesn’t mind calls asking when she’s going next. Her name is Katarina and her number is 514 816-1455. There’s a hot lead for you. Now go, and share rides like you’ve never shared before!