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Since it will be hard for me to pose this in an unbiased fashion, I will come right out and say I think the HOV lanes are a failed experiment. However, I am open to other viewpoints.... maybe someone can convince me of the value in them.
For those of you who car pool, was the ability to drive in the HOV lane a consideration in your desire to car pool? Was it a major factor, or just a bonus? Have HOV laws influenced any other decisions (buying an electric or hybrid car for example)?
At least here in the metro Phoenix area, I see a lot of the backups on the freeways caused by drivers cutting across multiple lanes of traffic as soon as they merge onto the freeway from the on ramp in order to get to the HOV. The people in the other lanes have to slam on the brakes in many cases, causing everything behind them to bunch up. So in this situation, I aver that the HOV lanes are actually a hazard (yeah, I know, the real hazard is the stupid driver cutting across instead of gradually blending, but as Ron White says, you can't fix stupid!).
Another safety hazard is caused by drivers using the HOV as the "wide open" lane. What I mean by this is people driving 10 or 15 mph over the limit in the HOV lane.
During the non-rush hour times, the HOV lanes are almost empty because a lot of people must think they are not allowed to drive in them if they are alone. So now we have under utilized infrastructure as another negative to the HOV lane.
Give me your opinions and please vote in the poll. I'm really curious as to how everyone else feels about this. Maybe I can learn a thing or two along the way!
One of the issues I seen in HOV/HOT lanes, is a "Slow" poke (A bus, A Commuter Van, Just a slow driver)
Most are single lanes with Solid Right lines so even if you wanted to pass on the right you can't legally (and of course passing on the right is Illegal also).
There should be a enforced minimum speed limit of (maybe) 5 mph of the speed limit. Or for obstructing the flow of traffic.
I used to commute on a state highway with an HOV lane. It went across a lake, and for the bridge portion of the highway, there were only 2 general purpose lanes--no HOV. Very often the stretch leading to the bridge (with HOV lane) would be crawling along and clogged. But once you hit the bridge (no HOV lane) traffic would often speed up dramatically.
I attributed it to, as the OP says, drivers changing lanes to either get on or off of the HOV. Somebody switches lanes, and the car he cuts off has to hit his brakes. And everybody behind him has to brake.
Less capacity, better traffic flow on the bridge. That's not just a failure, it's a debacle.
I commute now on an interstate that has 2 general purpose lanes, and 1 HOV lane for the entirety of my trip. One day there was an accident, so I was in the left GP lane, crawling along at about 5 MPH. I started looking at the cars in the HOV lane out of boredom. To my surprise, roughly one in three of them were 'HOV cheats' (single occupancy vehicles).
Our state patrol has been chronically understaffed, so there is little enforcement. I routinely cheat on the HOV on-ramps. With these on-ramps, there is a right lane with a stop light, and then there is a left (HOV) lane with no stop light.
I consider this to be dangerous. You have cars in the right lane pulling away from the stop light doing (say) 10 MPH as they get up to speed, and then the HOV drivers coming up from behind at 40-50 MPH because they didn't have to stop. And maybe 75 feet after the stop light, these two lanes squeeze down into one lane.
I haven't been ticketed yet, but even if I am, I consider the cost of a ticket a much better risk than an accident.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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The point of the HOV lane was to get workers to carpool, rather than drive alone to work. Look at any HOV lane at any time of day and you will find them occupied by families, not car poolers, except for those that allow you to pay to drive alone. Some people are willing to pay as much as $10 to drive alone in them, but most of the time at peak hours they are fairly empty while the other lanes are all clogged up, causing more pollution and wasting of fuel.
Getting workers to carpool was flawed from the start. It assumes that workers want to be together, let alone live in the same vicinity where carpooling is possible. There will be a handful of drivers who do not care about the lanes and use it as they see fit. HOV lanes does nothing to reduce traffic congestion.
When plans are developed based on assumptions and not empirical data, the idea is going to fail.
Carpooling mostly happens when you're going out with your spouse or family, then it happens naturally. But carpool lanes have nothing to do with that. That kind of carpooling will happen anyway with or without carpool lanes. Carpool lanes does nothing to encourage more people to carpool because it doesn't work. The only people I see commuting in a carpool are Mexican gardeners who go out on a job together, but again that is the kind of thing that happens with or without carpool lanes.
Carpool lanes are a dumb idea. The only reason they exist is to make people think we are doing something about traffic congestion and serves as an excuse not to provide real solutions like commuter rail, halting suburban sprawl, etc.
I used to commute on a state highway with an HOV lane. It went across a lake, and for the bridge portion of the highway, there were only 2 general purpose lanes--no HOV. Very often the stretch leading to the bridge (with HOV lane) would be crawling along and clogged. But once you hit the bridge (no HOV lane) traffic would often speed up dramatically.
I attributed it to, as the OP says, drivers changing lanes to either get on or off of the HOV. Somebody switches lanes, and the car he cuts off has to hit his brakes. And everybody behind him has to brake.
Less capacity, better traffic flow on the bridge. That's not just a failure, it's a debacle.
The problem wasn't necessarily the HOV lane, it was the reduced capacity. Going from three lanes to two is where the slowdown happens, not the two lanes themselves. Once you've gone down to two lanes traffic will move more quickly.
Even if people could merge perfectly and there was not holdup from that, 2 lanes have to move 1.5 times as fast as 3 lanes. It's the same reason the narrow parts of a river flow faster than the wide ones.
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