Carpool Lane Frustration

I agree with much of what you have said, but I do not think driverless cars will solve the problem. I think they may ultimately make it worse. I read an article a few months back about the unintended consequences of driverless vehicles. It is true that if all cars became driverless tomorrow, traffic would be greatly eased for some period of time. The problem is that people would adjust to this and decide that they would be willing to move even farther away from their places of work. Once they know that they can sleep, eat, play and/or work during their commute, they will view the time spent commuting as much less of an issue. The article I read was talking about the strain this will put on things like cellular data networks (as a result of all of the would-be drivers being free to work or play online during their commute). Just as each transportation innovation (rails, cars, freeways) has expanded cities, so will driverless cars. We started out with walking cities in which where we lived and worked was largely determined by how far we could walk to work each day. Each innovation let us move farther away. There's a very good book called Crabgrass Frontier by Kenneth Jackson that describes this history.

 

I know someone who is trading in their 2015 PiP for a new Prime just to get the sticker for another 3 years.

In the real world, some people are forced to take a job 60+ miles away and want to do something other than spend an extra 2 hours per day in traffic I guess.

 

I know there are some people for whom a long commute may be unavoidable, and they certainly have my sympathy. However, there is certainly a huge percentage of people who could move closer to their work but choose not to, often because they want a lifestyle they could not afford to maintain in the city in which they work. Those people create a problem, and we are all subsidizing their lifestyles. There are measures that could be taken to address this, but HOV lanes and wider freeways will never solve the problem.

Maybe we'll reach a point where we will pay a tax based on the number of miles we drive (rather than a flat rate based on the value of our cars), or based on when and where we drive those miles. My cousin is an economist. He is adamant that higher gas prices are a good thing because they discourage unnecessary driving. Higher gas prices would certainly disproportionately benefit hybrid drivers in that regard. I would favor more substantial gas taxes that would discourage unnecessary long commutes and inefficient vehicles. The taxes could be put toward public transportation systems, and those who have long commutes would pay more taxes, which makes sense. People would be forced to weigh their options when it comes to where they live, how much they drive and what they drive.

If we do nothing, the unbearable grind of driving in heavy traffic will, at some point, discourage people from undertaking the obligation of long commutes.

 

The answers to your questions are "yes", "yes", and "yes". I got my stickers Summer 2017 just before selling my PIP to increase the resale value and to make sure the new owner would be taken care of after 2019. There was no point to me applying for the stickers earlier since I wouldn't have used the HOV privilege anyway.

 

Interestingly enough, the person driving 60+ miles actually lives in a much better (i.e. pricier, less crime) neighborhood than the one they are commuting to.

On the flip side, I know people who drive 160 miles per day (all they way up and down the 405 freeway - otherwise known as the freeway to hell) simply because they can't afford a house in the area that they work at. Home ownership is that important to them.

In the end, everyone will do what they think they need to do. Myself, being in a car more than 45 minutes one way is unacceptable. Usually it's a 30 minute drive in the AM and about 35 in the afternoons (assuming HoV).

 

I agree. The 405 is it’s own hell! If I drive from San Diego to central Los Angeles, the trip can take anywhere from just under two hours to as much as six and one-half hours. And I usually don’t find the HOV lanes to be all that beneficial on the 405.

People will do what they want. There was a segment on 60 Minutes in the 1990s about a real estate developer who built a supposed “bedroom community” well away from Los Angeles (something like 90 or more miles, IIRC). They then advertised it as a low-cost alternative for Angelenos looking for reasonably priced family homes. They had set up carpools in big vans to help sell the idea. With traffic as bad as it already was, these poor saps were getting up before 4:00 a.m. to get ready to carpool in, with a similarly-long commute in the evenings after work. They were miserable. I remember some of them were bringing electric razors and shaving in the vans so they could catch a few extra moments of sleep. Others were bringing pillows and sleeping in the vans. I wish I could remember the name of the community. It’s probably considered a reasonable commute these days.

Regardless of why people set themselves up with these commutes, they will be far less likely to do so if we as a society implement policies that will make them absorb the full cost of their choices. Gas prices are a good place to start. Our gas is far cheaper than what they pay in European countries. Taxing it more with the proceeds going to public transportation would have so many benefits. Everything from less congestion to less pollution, and less dependence on foreign oil.

Ralph Nader has said for years that there is no reason we shouldn’t all be driving cars that get 50+ mpg (that the government should have mandated that and that manufacturers would have then risen to the challenge). Instead we find ourselves in this incredible cycle. Every time gas goes up, people start buying more efficient cars, but every time it goes down, it’s right back to the SUVs that get around 14 mpg.

 

The real problem with overcrowding of carpool lanes in the SF Bay Area are scofflaws; 24%+ of the traffic in the lane.

What, global warming from CO2 emissions doesn't affect Washington State?

Motorcycles? They let them split lanes in California and most riders do. In that light, safety reasons to let them use the carpool lane is BS, in my opinion. They should also be smog checked as they pollute as much as 10 cars and most are way too loud because their exhaust system has been illegally modified.

 

Hi MikeDee: You've hit on a whole other issue with the modified exhaust on motorcycles. They do that purposefully for safety reasons (I've seen bumper stickers like "Loud Pipes Save Lives!"). Of course, you have to grant that it is safer for them, especially when they are lane splitting. It is also absurd for the rest of us to be subjected to that everywhere these motorcycles go at all hours of the day and night. I owned motorcycles when I was younger. I never even knew about modifying the exhaust. Lane splitting was illegal where I lived, and I wouldn't have considered it, anyway. You couldn't pay me enough to take that risk. There also weren't any HOV lanes. Motorcycles were all I could afford back then, and you just had to take your chances out there with the cars and trucks on the road.

I'm surprised by what you say about scofflaws in the HOV lanes. The only time I see that here is when someone hops into the HOV lane on a freeway on ramp or off ramp. You can complete the entirety of that maneuver fairly quickly and hope to avoid detection. But in the actual lanes you'd be out there on display the whole time, risking a ticket your entire trip. Is enforcement that lax?

 

There's a coast highway we take into town occasionally, two lanes each way, and on weekday mornings, certain hours, the right lane is reserved for High Occupancy Vehicles only, two or more occupants required.

Once in a while I need to do this route, during HOV time, alone. I like to abide by the rules of the road, including the speed limit. Unfortunately for me, traffic is usually light enough, that the non-HOV lane is moving freely, VERY freely, the typical left lane 20~30 kilometers over the speed limit, with occasional tailgaters weaving in and out, passing on the right. Legitimate HOV lane users? There are next to none; the right lane is basically vacant.

What usually happens is I'll stick to the rules for a bit, then get over to the right (breaking the law), and slow down, keeping an eye out for the weavers.

I really don't like this imposed order, not sure what to do. Mostly I just avoid that situation, as much as possible.

 

Hi Mendel - Aren't you risking a very expensive ticket doing that?

 

Illegal here, and last I heard, illegal in 49 states. It violates a fundamental road safety principle that each motor vehicle is entitled to the use of the full width of its lane. All passing vehicles must use a separate free lane. This is to protect motorcyclists, as well as other road users.

A lane-splitting motorcyclist was life-flighted to our main trauma center just last night, I haven't yet heard whether or not he survived:
Highway 18 in Auburn back open after crash involving motorcycle | KOMO

While I agree, I'll let you try to tell that to them and their lobbyists at our state capital in Olympia.

Do you have any enforcement? We do:
State Patrol busts more than 180 HOV lane cheaters in 3 days | KOMO

WSP totals of more than 14,000 HOV-cheater pull-overs, 10,000 tickets per year:
How many HOV-lane cheaters are there, and how many get caught? | The Seattle Times

We already put plenty of real carpoolers into our I-5 HOV lanes. And we have so many single-occupant eco-car already that allowing them special privileges into those HOV lanes would overwhelm them, adding serious delays to the higher priority users: transit buses.

 

(1) Yes, lane splitting is absurd and should be illegal here, too. And believe me those same motorcyclists DO want their full lane whenever they are not splitting lanes. My main objection is the risk it poses to me and my vehicle, as well as the immense stress and hassle that would doubtlessly be an injury accident would cause me.

(2) I wonder how motorcyclists would like it if they were required to ride at the far edge of the lane so we could zoom past them in the lane whenever we want?

(3) I can't really speak to whether we have much HOV lane enforcement here. I don't drive that much. I think most of the HOV lanes in San Diego are at on ramps and off ramps. I do see cops at the on ramps and off ramps sometimes who appear to be waiting for violators. However, since the HOV lanes are broken into so many small ramps, enforcement is probably more difficult and resource-consuming.

(4) I see the logic of what you say, but I still think that these carpool lanes, to whatever extent they are successful in reducing traffic congestion, will only result in more people moving farther away and joining the ranks of those who are commuting. In the end, too many people will always choose these commutes, and the amount of traffic will always rise. These HOV lanes allow things like parents with children who can't drive, so they certainly aren't completely geared toward reducing traffic. There is no way that a person driving other people who can't drive is more entitled to using an HOV lane than people driving electric or plug-in cars.

I have a friend who lives in Seattle. He has chosen to live within a few miles of the downtown area so that he doesn't have to commute. He rarely drives at all. The cost of that choice is living in a studio apartment. For the same price, he could buy a house in an outlying area and join the ranks of commuters who shift the cost of their commute (all of the HOV lane and freeway expansion and maintenance) to the rest of us. In the end, the only true solutions to traffic congestion are things like public transportation and, more importantly, people living closer to their jobs, even if that means having to live in smaller, multiple-family dwellings.

 

The name of the city in that segment is Moreno Valley.

 

Really? You remember that segment? Is Moreno Valley still viewed as hell and gone from L.A.? Or have people gotten used to it?

 

I do remember it - it made quite an impression on me, because I commuted to Manhattan from Pennsylvania for three years in the late 1980s, which took me two hours and 15 minutes each way.

With all the overpopulation along the western side on California, there are now scores of communities whose residents fight traffic for two hours+ each way to work!

 

Yes, it is the same way here in extreme Southern California. In 1980, my grandfather moved to a new neighborhood that was being built about 16 miles from downtown. His friends all told him he was crazy to move all the way out there. They told him he was moving out in the sticks. Now the commute to that neighborhood is considered easy, and it is considered a central area. It is nothing for people to be commuting 60 miles or more each way, every work day, in heavy traffic. It is insane.

 

I agree- it is insane! One more observation dating me - Californians used to express their commute not in distance, but in duration: "I'm only 45 minutes from work." It used to impress me that they traveled 50 or 60 miles in those 45 minutes - back when the 405 saved you time. When they actually revealed just how far they drive each way, it would surprise most out-of staters like me at the time. Now, the coin flipped over, and distances are mentioned first... but my goodness, how long it now takes them to cover those 50 or 60 miles... double or triple the time it used to take.

 

Obfuscation.