Waukesha Commuters Report "Reconsidering Everything" As Gas Prices Hit Four-Year High

WAUKESHA — Downtown office workers with commutes of 20 miles or more are describing this month's gas price spike as "the annual cost-of-commute reckoning," according to a survey of 47 local employees conducted by Bluff Point Marketing, a small agency on East Broadway that says it ran the poll mostly out of its own curiosity after three staffers brought up carpooling unprompted at a single Tuesday meeting.

Of those surveyed, 34% said they are "seriously considering" carpooling for the first time, and 19% said they have begun evaluating remote-work arrangements with their employers. Bluff Point account manager Denise Okafor, 39, who commutes 26 miles from Dousman, said the firm didn't expect the numbers to be that high. "We thought maybe 10, 15%," Okafor said. "Then we ran it and everybody in the office looked at each other."

Wisconsin gas prices have climbed to $4.36 a gallon statewide, according to AAA figures, a level not seen locally in four years. For commuters driving in from Dousman, Delafield, and North Prairie, the increase has turned what used to be a background cost into a line item several said they now check before checking the weather.

"I did the math on my actual commute, not the number I tell myself, and I did not love it."

— Todd Bremmer, 44, claims adjuster, 22-mile commute from Delafield

The Lawn Chair Data

Ned England, the Backslide Way resident best known for documenting neighborhood traffic from a lawn chair with a radar gun, said in a recent "Nedventuresout" video that he has noticed a measurable decline in solo-occupancy vehicles passing his house between 7:45 and 8:15 a.m. over the past two weeks. England, who was not part of the Bluff Point survey and does not know anyone who was, estimated the drop at "somewhere around a third, maybe a little less," based on a tally he keeps on a yellow legal pad wedged under his chair's armrest.

England acknowledged in the video that his sample size "might be statistically limited," noting that his data collection window closes whenever his neighbor's sprinkler system activates at 8:16 a.m. and obstructs his sightline. He said he plans to continue the count "as long as gas stays expensive or the sprinkler gets fixed, whichever comes first."

The Carpool Math

Karen Dietz, 41, an account coordinator who commutes 24 miles from North Prairie, said she and a coworker who lives two streets over have started alternating driving days in Dietz's 2019 Subaru Outback, splitting the fuel cost down the middle. Dietz said the arrangement has already surfaced one complication: her coworker prefers talk radio, and Dietz prefers silence until she has finished her coffee, a disagreement they have resolved by trading control of the radio every other week.

"It's saving me about $40 a week," Dietz said. "It is costing me some amount of patience I haven't fully calculated yet."

Others surveyed described more tentative steps. One respondent, who asked not to be named because her employer hasn't formally approved remote work, said she has started proposing "trial Fridays" from home and has so far gotten as far as a noncommittal "let's see how it goes" from her manager. Another said he switched from a 2015 Ford F-150 to his wife's Honda Civic for his commute three days a week, a change he described as "humbling but cheaper."

What Comes Next

Bluff Point Marketing said it plans to rerun the survey in November to see whether the carpooling interest holds once the fuel surcharge conversation among local businesses works its way further into household budgets. Okafor said she personally has not started carpooling yet, citing a commute that "doesn't overlap with anyone else's schedule enough to make it worth the coordination," though she added that she has started tracking her own mileage in a spreadsheet "the way Ned tracks his sprinkler."

England, for his part, said he intends to keep watching from the lawn chair regardless of what the price of gas does next. "Somebody's got to," he said. "Might as well be somebody who's already sitting down."