Kicking hybrids from carpool lanes slows everyone down

This is NOT a working Mass transit bus system. What you need is a bus system that works on getting people from a outer parking lot to the inners of LA where they work and back to their cars fast. Of course you would need multiple parking lots with many different destinations for many different buses, that get passengers close to where they want to be. It would work, if they set it up....

 

Plate to VIN to vehicle (make, model, submodel, transmission) to mpg should be doable. Then there's the question of what weighting to use.

I think the only benefit to having an operator is giving change. All lanes take EZPass, so plates are captured. If you fail to pay you'll be sent a letter and if you fail to pay you'll be suspended. (That has been just Mainers but the Turnpike Authority will be cooperating with NH and MA to catch interstate toll-jumpers.)

 

This assumes folks work in inner LA, a wrong assumption I have lived in cities with effective bus service and with ineffective. One common thread is high population density at the bus systems core. LA has sprawl.

 

I just learned about the expiration the other day. I am in the bay area of CA and I am seeing lots of yellow stickers in the carpool lanes on I 80 and 680. The only prii I am seeing that are not in the carpool lanes are ones without stickers. It seems that there has been no formal notice given about the expiration. Does anyone know if this expiration is being enforced? Does anyone share my observations, or am I just too focused on my MPG readout?

Ron

 

I recently saw one person who is oblivious to the new rule and was driving by himself.

Are they enforcing the carpool lane? I'm sure they do ...

However, whenever I see someone drive like a jackass and enter the carpool lane, I look very carefully to see if they have a passenger. Guess what, a lot of times they don't. I swear I see single-occupants using the carpool lane to pass other vehicles all the time, they will even drive it for a few exits before leaving. I have never seen CHP pull over anyone for that.

Where is CHP when someone is driving like an jerk? They're never there .

But I do see CHP motorcycles drive alongside cars in the carpool and I bet they are looking for violations.

Also, sometimes when there is enough shoulder space, a CHP car is parked doing surveillance.

I am fairly certain 90% of Prius drivers know of the new rule. I see a lot of Gen II Priuses with yellow stickers and they do not drive in the carpool any longer.

 

I use the carpool lane on the 405 almost every day and it doesn't look underutilized to me. My experience with the carpool lane is that it has gotten slower since the cars with yellow stickers were dumped back into the regular lanes. I do see CHP officers pulling over single drivers in the fast lane, including someone in a Prius a few days ago. It is amazing how many single drivers I see in the carpool lane when traffic is heavy.

When they extended the carpool lane from just passed the airport up to the 10 freeway the conjestion in that area dropped considerably. The typical traffic backup on the regular lanes moved from around Manchester to Culver Blvd and on good days the backup doesn't start now until after the 10 freeway.

I said at the time it was a mistake terminated the Yellow stickers when they did and I was proved right.

I also work close to 73 Toll road and that is one of the most underutilzed stretches of road in Southern California. The 405 will be jam packed while the 73 will be almost empty.

I noticed that someone wrote about LA being 65 Square miles but that's only LA but traffic coming and going is based around the Greater Los Angeles area which is something like 2000 square miles. For example everyone knows that Disneyland is in LA but it is really in Aneheim which is about 50 miles from where I live in LA. Places of business are also spread around that whole area and it is difficult and expensive to build a public transport system that works in an area of that size.

 

LA used to have pretty good public transportation. I wonder what happened to it?

All transportation infrastructure is difficult and expensive, roads included. More accurately; 'roads especially'. But as long as we keep funding the status quo, and calling everything spent on 'public' stuff a 'subsidy', we'll all be stuck in traffic for a very long time.