Carpooling to Resident Retention?

I was reading yet another article today about rising gas prices and how people cope, either by taking mass transit more or finding carpools, and it occurred to me that our communities have a perfect opportunity to provide a value-added carpool matching tool for our residents! I'm sure this has been going on for years in more environmentally friendly cities for quite some time, but this could really be a benefit across the country.

The obvious benefit is to reduce your residents' gas expense every month. But what about another, less apparent, benefit of creating resident connections? Suddenly you have groups of 2,3, or 4 riding in the same car every single day, talking about their hobbies, their families, their lives in general. Not all groups are going to become fast friends, but at the very least they have familiar faces in their own community, somebody to call in an emergency that is only a few seconds away, and a general sense of connection to their current community. And at the very best you have created pairs or groups of very good friends who strongly impact eachother's decision to renew.