SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Bay Area commuters are once again looking at nightmarish traffic on Monday, as the United States' fifth largest commuter rail network will shut down on Sunday at midnight, according to the strike notice issued by Union leaders early this morning.

If the strike continues as planned, hundreds of thousands of BART riders will be desperately seeking alternative methods of getting to their workplaces, and hundreds of thousands of additional car commuters will be caught up in mind-numbing gridlock.

"The closest thing there is (to BART's capacity) is the unused seats in people's cars," said John Goodwin, MTC spokesman. "We have three recommendations: carpool, carpool, carpool."

Carpooling pioneer Carma, which has the largest concentration of carpoolers in the Bay Area via its smartphone app, is warning drivers and riders to be prepared for the chaos.

"Come Monday morning, you can either fly in the carpool lane past deadlocked traffic, or suffer in the unquenchable fires of gridlock hell," said Sean O'Sullivan, Carma CEO.

Carma's app can be used to join the stream of carpools that will be departing every few minutes during morning rush hour from Carma's carpool hubs in Rockridge and Pleasant Hill/Contra Costa BART stations. The evening commute departs from Spear St. & Folsom St. in San Francisco. Drivers who carry carpoolers for both the morning and evening commute will receive at least $25 each day during the BART strike.

Carma is also helping commuters understand how to use existing casual carpool sites at http://car.ma/bartstrike. Charts and data for each casual carpooling location has been compiled and graphed at the website, available for the first time today.

For those who prefer to arrange carpools in advance, the Carma Carpooling app (available on both iPhone and Android) gives access to thousands of riders and drivers across the Bay Area.

About CarmaFounded in 2007, Carma (formerly known as Avego) leads the world in carpooling technology, helping people team up to solve the commute. Headquartered in Cork, Ireland, with offices in Silicon Valley, Austin and Dublin, Carma's customers include cities, governments, public transport operators and tens of thousands of individual consumers and private transport operators. For more on Carma, see http://car.ma or download the app from the iPhone App Store or Android's Google Play.

SOURCE Carma

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