Car pool lanes

Car pool lanes

As I commute back and forth to work on the freeways of northern California, I find that I have a regular “rant” about the lanes that have been set aside on many of the freeways.  When they were originally proposed as a way to convince people to car pool it seemed like a great idea.  More people sharing cars would reduce the traffic, reduce pollution, reduce the consumption of fuel and possibly make the commute go faster.  
However, after a couple of decades with this experiment it turns out to have failed to accomplish any of those things.  The only things that have been accomplished is that we have dedicated a very expensive lane to the few who either can, or happen to have, enough folks to make up a car pool.  The loss of the lane results in a serious slowing of the bulk of the traffic.  The traffic flow normally changes from above the speed limit to one-half or less when the car pools are in effect.  The change in speed of the flow changes abruptly when the times for the change happen (on both ends of the time period), or when a section of highway is put into, or taken out of, the car pool restrictions.  The effect is immediate and quite large.  

This means that on the average the time for commute doubles if a car pool is in existence.  This results in a huge waste of many people’s time, a terrible increase in pollution and gas use, and has no discernable positive results.  It appears that in almost all cases the people who are riding in the car pool lane would be sharing a car whether or not the lane existed.  In many cases it is cars with one or more children, or couples who clearly are riding together because they are together.  I would venture to say that not one in a hundred of the cars using the car pool lane would drive separate cars if the lanes didn’t exist.  I suspect that there is NO measurable benefit from the lanes.  However, there is a huge negative impact with this extremely costly experiment.   I would be much happier to not be forced into paying for these extra lanes and ride in congested traffic than to be forced to spend the money and still have to ride in the congested lanes.  

All of us commuters would be happy to car pool to save money, time and have someone to talk to on the way to work if we could.  However, we can’t – therefore we don’t.  It isn’t as if we are somehow choosing to commute in the most expensive way we can find, it is that we are commuting in the ONLY way that we can find.

I would like to see our government finally wake up and smell the roses on this.  Car pools do no go, and do a lot of harm. Get rid of them and let people use the expensive freeways that we built.  This will increase the traffic flow, decrease the use of fuel, decrease pollution and make life a whole lot better for the folks who are forced to spend hundreds (or thousands) of hours a year sitting in the cars in order to make a living.  If the government wants to us money to really help the commuters, fuel use, pollution,etc, - they should spend the money making public transportation systems that really work for people.  I would be happy to take a train to work if there was some way to get around once I got to the train station, but there isn’t.  I end up at the train station and them can’t get to work, can’t get to a hotel, can’t get to food, can’t do anything because the infrastructure is not in place to allow easy and cost effective movement once I am off of the train.  

I suggest that it is time to stop the failed experiments with car pool lanes in northern California.