Posted on 04/03/2006 9:46:34 AM PDT by crv16
A report examines nearly five years of travel data and concludes that HOV lanes have increased congestion in San Francisco.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and California State University, East Bay have measured the effect of high occupancy vehicle (HOV) restrictions on 100 miles of freeway in the San Francisco Bay area and found the lanes have had the opposite of their intended effect. Using detectors buried in the pavement, they analyzed four-and-a-half years worth of speed and travel time data from 2001 to 2005. Because the HOV/carpool restrictions only apply for 8-10 hours a day on the freeway segments examined, traffic flow was measured both with and without the restriction.
"HOV actuation imposes a twenty percent capacity penalty," wrote Jaimyoung Kwon and Pravin Varaiya, the study's authors. "The HOV restriction significantly increases demand on the other lanes causing a net increase in overall congestion delay. HOV actuation does not significantly increase person throughput."
The study found that at 60 MPH, an HOV lane has a maximum flow of 1600 vehicles per hour compared with 2000 for the general purpose lanes. Researchers used an estimate of 1.3 or 1.4 occupants per vehicle in the general purpose lanes to calculate that HOV lanes are not able to transport more people per hour than a general purpose lane.
Moreover, no increase in carpooling was measured as a result of increased delays in the general purpose lanes either in the short term or in a long-term analysis.
"HOV lanes exacerbate the problem," the authors conclude. They found overall congestion would be reduced by eliminating the HOV lane, but only in areas where effective on-ramp metering is employed during congested periods.
A report released last year also shows that the most common form of HOV lane, where general and restricted traffic is not separated by a physical barrier, causes a fifty percent increase in accidents. The full report is available in a 163k PDF file at the source link below.
What, another social engineering failure?
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Yes, and another MASSIVE waste of the taxpayers money. All brought to you by a far-left liberal government dedicated to controlling your life, your time, your resources and all your wealth....welcome to Mexifornia.
I thought that was the OBJECTIVE.
Who on earth would think otherwise?
When will they realize that the "speed passes" they are now using across the country also increase congestion.
Maybe if they made the lanes race-based it would improve things....
I hate HOV lanes. I hate social engineering...
But, isn't the other side's argument that it reduces the volume of traffic, not that it makes the roadways more capable of handling the traffic they have?
And nothing will change.
It's a mirror-image in South FLorida Interstates as well, wherever there are HOV lanes.
"Maybe if they made the lanes race-based it would improve things...."
Now that was funny...almost spat my food at the screen!
... or is the news article screwing up by referring to vehicles when it should be referring to passengers.
Of course, the real big issue: Do HOV lanes result in fewer vehicles, or simply skim off the HO-Vehicles?
The Law Of Unintended Consequences Is NEVER Repealed
I like your way of thinking. :)
Realistically, I get to travel through that mega-metropolis known as Atlanta on occasion. What a mess. the HOV lanes there are useless, and when people do use them, they travel quite slowly. Atlanta is a city that needs an exitless bypass so that those of us passing through aren't bogged down by the local traffic mess.
They needed a study to arrive at this pathetically obvious conclusion?
Gotta love Bezerkley.
Well, duh! I figured that out pretty fast on my own when I started having to fight my way back and forth to work through the I-270 corridor in Maryland several years ago. Nowadays, at 6:29 p.m., the traffic is bumper to bumper, door to door jammed. At 6:31 p.m., everything suddenly opens up when the HOV restriction ends and it's NASCAR time...
HOV lanes are just handling the traffic that the other lanes don't want.
Remember, they didn't report on the loss of ticket revenue if the HOV lanes are returned to open traffic. HOV is a real money maker here in Norther Virginia.
Dumpocrats up here in Washington State actually have some HOV lanes where you have to have at least 3 people in the car to use the lane.
On any given morning or evening during rush hour, you have traffic at a dead stop for as far as the eye can see while in the HOV lane, you see a car with three people once about every 30 to 60 seconds pass by.
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