No more HOV use in California as of 7/1/11

Good News! You CAN still use the High Occupancy vehicle lanes! You just need 2 or more occupants.

 

Leave a buffer and try to maintain the average speed instead of doing start stop. Or maybe it's time to check out the car pool sites.

 

Indeed, and that's sure a cheaper way to use the lane than buying another car!

If you're in the market for a Plug-in Prius early next year, you can get a green sticker that allows you into the lane. But only 40000 of those will be issued, so it's strictly a limited deal. I thought serious about going that route, but decided that I can't afford it and can't justify buying a new car at this point JUST to be able to use the carpool lanes solo.

 

I predict that drivers on CA freeways may see the occasional mannequin riding in Prius front passenger seats after July 1. Or, car seats with a fake baby within...

 

Buy motorcycle?

 

I know. I'm sad too, but I had a good run. I would buy a Leaf in a heartbeat if I didn't live in an apartment with a shared garage and no way to charge.

 

I also received my letter yesterday, I knew it was comming but now
it feels worse. I called the Ca air resource board and was told thats it folks.
It was great while it lasted, now the fun begins.

 

I'd pay extra money on my registration to use the lanes. Jerry should do that, 80000 yellow stickers at $100.00 per year. That's a lot of scratch.

 

Anyone planning to remove their stickers? Mine are peeling off anyway.

 

If I were him, I would sell them to the top 80,000 bidders in an open auction.

 

Some cities allow free parking in metered stalls if you have a sticker. Los Angeles is/was one of those. I'm not sure when that practice expires, but until I find out, the stickers stay.

 

I don't know how but there has to be a way to get the knuckleheads in Sacramento to turn the stickers into a money maker for this cash poor state. I know a whole lot of people would be willing to spend $100.00 annually to keep the car pool lane access. If 85,000 pay $100.00 it equal's 8.5 Million to the state. Say it cost 1 million to process the program it still leaves 7.5 million Clean Green Profit. Does anyone know how to start a petition?

 

I don't know how but there has to be a way to get the knuckleheads in Sacramento to turn the stickers into a money maker for this cash poor state. I know a whole lot of people would be willing to spend $100.00 annually to keep the car pool lane access. If 85,000 pay $100.00 it equal's 8.5 Million to the state. Say it cost 1 million to process the program it still leaves 7.5 million Clean Green Profit. Does anyone know how to start a petition?

 

$100/year for single occupant cars is far too cheap. Why not use electronic tolling to charge whatever the market will bear? And let anyone participate, regardless of vehicle model. Washington State already does this on the Highway 167 HOT lanes, which don't get sufficient use as HOV lanes.

During carpool / tolling hours, tolls are dynamically priced to manage congestion, to ensure that single occupant traffic doesn't interfere with transit buses and carpools. The toll ranges from $0.50 to $9.00 per trip. For commuters exercising this option both ways every day, this will cost a minimum of $250/year, potentially reaching $4500/year if the peak price were to occur regularly.

Our other HOV lanes don't have excess capacity available for this program.

 

Sigh, got my letter too. Is there anything we can do to fight this, or is it too late? I'd happily pay an annual fee.

 

I have this general impression that in years past in CA a used Prius with an HOV sticker sold for about a $2k premium. Even less HOV stickers for single occupant drivers are being offered now, so the premium will be even higher.

I think CA could sell as many stickers as it cares to at $5000/3 yrs. That works out to $6.6 a work-day, and would attract people with wages over $30/hour and half an hour savings a day using the HOV lane.

 

I'm in the Air Force, stationed in Los Angeles. When I was assigned here a few years ago I followed this forum because I was going to try to buy a used prius with HOV stickers to help out my commute. The prices were outrageous so I ended up buying a used CNG civic GX. When my wife lost her carpool partner we ended up fighting over the GX so we bought another GX. Will still have the minivan that had been our prior second car but we are so used to our CNG cars that we almost never use the minivan (the battery died recently from not having turned it on in 2 or 3 months). Once you get used to CNG (which means getting used to getting gas an extra time a week but also saving a ton in gas prices- even over a prius) its great. Because of the lengths of our commute we save almost $2000 a year in gas prices from what we used to pay to fuel my wife's minivan.

When the gulf oil spill happened last summer no one was angrier than my wife and I since by then we were essentially oil free. I think letting the carpool stickers expire for hybrids was the smartest thing CA has done if it wants to help the environment and decrease our dependence on foreign oil. My wife and I are being reassigned this summer to somewhere without CNG infrastructure so we are going to sell both of our CNG civics. I am planning to sell them to fellow members of the military for what I paid, without the kind of markups that prius owners were asking for.

The reason I was on this forum is because I'm debating between a leaf and prius as our replacement at our new station but when I saw this thread I thought I could lend some insight. I'd encourage anyone thinking about buying a CNG car to stay in the carpool lanes to do it.

 

Good.Thankfully I got out of the bay area/silicon valley rat race. Lived in PaloAlto many many years. Not the same anymore. I still have to pass through San Jose etc at times, often the HOV lane is bogged down as well. I think it should be for carpoolers only, the purpose of the idea, as the name of the lane implies. And find a better way to enforce it, too many violators.

I always found it a bit scary to be in an HOV lane(with two people) and waiting for someone to pull in front of me in the lane over as I am doing 60mph, or more.

 

In fact, this is slated to happen on 101 and other freeways around here. But it'll take a few years to get there, unfortunately. Won't do me any good; I'm likely to be retired by the time this happens on 101.