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I wouldn't consider the HOV lanes in Houston as being empty, they are just as much used and sometimes as backed up as a regular lane.
We used to have problems with cheaters getting into the HOV/Toll lanes, but then they separated them, so it isn't as much of a problem now as it used to be.
I personally think they are great, until they get just as backed up as the main freeway lanes.
My wife used to drive in the HOV lane sometimes while she was pregnant with twins. She said she had three people in the car and just dared them to deny that. She never got stopped though. I told her that her argument was likely to get her two tickets for car seat violations.
Eh, the carpool lanes are supposed to be for carpoolers and you could be ticketed if you use them so I stay in the non-carpool lanes unless I have a good reason to take on that risk.
Quote:
Originally Posted by richb
Ha ha! Sure I do! They are another attempt at social engineering that looks good on paper but in execution, not so well.
HOV lanes would work out far better if enough cars had more than one person in them. But since probably 85%-95% of cars on expressways only contain one human a piece, you end up with traffic jams in the regular lanes with the HOV lane standing mostly empty waiting for those few cars with enough people in them. If you opened all the lanes to everybody, maybe there would be fewer jams????? We have had these HOV lanes for decades in some cities and it hasn't changed people habits because its not really possible to change those habits.
Motorists should be entitled to full use of the roads that they paid taxes for and were built for their convenience. Transportation policy should not be used as social engineering or for behavior modification purposes. Why should I be penalized for choosing not to take another person with me in my car? Besides, if motorists' habits are unchanged after decades of HOV lanes, restricting lanes seems pointless to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tw71
I don't know.... I think I'm still in agreement with the guy from Chicago, all in all. The HOV lanes are a gimmick really. They appear to solve a problem but they're just, at best, a band-aid rather than a solution.
Even if you could achieve 100% enforcement of the rules on them, you're right... When you've got a lot of traffic, you simply need as many lanes of pavement as possible to get it all moved through. Limiting a lane or two to only cars with at least 2 people in them or whatnot is stupid. It's basically an attempt to say, "Hey -- we didn't build this road for the capacity it sees, so we're going to try to force you to change your behaviors when you travel. Ride with some random stranger or something, and then you can use one of these "special" lanes we don't let everyone else use."
True. The HOV lanes don't decrease congestion - you might decrease congestion in the HOV lanes (moving more people) but at the same time cars with only one person experience greater congestion, so it comes out roughly the same. If traffic is gridlocked no amount of lane restrictions will fix the problem - there simply isn't enough lanes for all the cars, so to fix the problem you need to bite the bullet and just widen the road.
Motorists should be entitled to full use of the roads that they paid taxes for and were built for their convenience. Transportation policy should not be used as social engineering or for behavior modification purposes. Why should I be penalized for choosing not to take another person with me in my car? Besides, if motorists' habits are unchanged after decades of HOV lanes, restricting lanes seems pointless to me.
True. The HOV lanes don't decrease congestion - you might decrease congestion in the HOV lanes (moving more people) but at the same time cars with only one person experience greater congestion, so it comes out roughly the same. If traffic is gridlocked no amount of lane restrictions will fix the problem - there simply isn't enough lanes for all the cars, so to fix the problem you need to bite the bullet and just widen the road.
The purpose of HOV lanes is to move more people per lane as well as lower fuel usage. The total cost of building highways is from the general fund, not just the gas tax. If it moves more people, it's an increase in efficiency.
For example, lowering the restriction on this carpool/bus lane lead to less people moved per hour:
Lowering the vehicle-occupancy requirement from 3+ to 2+ full time had a detrimental effect on the Busway. At the same time, significant improvements were not realized in the general-purpose freeway lanes. Morning peak-period travel speeds in the Busway were reduced from 65 mph to 20 mph, while travel speeds in the general-purpose lanes decreased from 25 mph to 23 mph for most of the demonstration. Hourly Busway vehicle volumes during the morning peak-period increased from 1,100 to 1,600 with the 2+ designation, but the number of persons carried declined from 5,900 to 5,200.
Before the change, it probably looked like the lane was underused —*traffic zipping by at 65 mph. That doesn't mean it wasn't carrying much volume.
Then there's Dr. Nick Riveria from the Simpsons, who drove with a cadaver in the passenger seat to use the HOV lane.
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