Dynamic Rideshare Update

For those of you who patiently bore my obsessive rants, posts, and questionnaires about dynamic ridesharing...you can see the resulting essay here, attached as a "written statement" to my profile for a contest sponsored by Keen Footwear, who look like a pretty interesting company based in Portland, OR. Winners announced by March 24. A lot of people are doing cooler things than essays--so I'm not considering a grand prize, but have to say I have my fingers crossed for the journalism prize. It can't be helped that some of the funds would go toward relocation--though maybe the couple extra thousand is what will put me in the ballpark for a used hybrid! But I want to also pay myself for a few days of research into who, if anyone, is considering real-time ride-share systems, and what I can do to support those efforts. At the very least I want to check out the Urban Planning and Transport Studies institutions at UCLA and USC and squeak my wheels if no one is considering it as an option.