Interstate 5 near North 130th
Street, require two or more
occupants.
Posted on 10/16/2003 7:04:06 AM PDT by Anthem
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| HOV lanes, shown here on Interstate 5 near North 130th Street, require two or more occupants. |
Are they too crowded? Should HOV-2 become HOV-3?
Last year traffic in five of 14 HOV (high-occupancy vehicle) lanes monitored by University of Washington researchers failed to meet the state Department of Transportation's 11-year-old performance standard. The threshold: an average rush-hour speed of at least 45 mph at least nine weekdays out of 10.
Banning two-person car pools is one option the department is supposed to consider when speed and reliability slip below those levels. But the HOV lanes' 2002 performance was actually an improvement over 2000, when eight lanes fell below the standard.
Over the past two years, traffic in the car-pool lanes has leveled off — probably because of the recession, says Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington. Volumes in seven of the 14 corridors studied actually declined slightly.
But state and regional transportation officials say the reprieve is only temporary. Between 1998 and 2000, peak-period traffic volumes in the region's freeway HOV lanes surged 16 percent.
Volumes will start climbing again when the economy recovers, the experts predict.
"We are getting close to the point where some tough decisions are going to have to be made," says Charles Prestrud, HOV planner with the state Department of Transportation.
Four of the five lanes that fell below the state standard last year are on Interstate 5, leading into and out of downtown Seattle from the north and south. Raising the HOV threshold to three people per vehicle in those lanes would mean less competition and higher speeds for buses and van pools, says Aaron Ostrom, executive director of the anti-sprawl group 1000 Friends of Washington.
What's more, he adds, many of the cars carrying two people in the HOV lanes aren't really car pools: They aren't taking cars off the road. "When you go out on a date, is that a car pool?" Ostrom asks.
But Hallenbeck says excluding two-person car pools would be a knee-jerk reaction. "Rarely is it the appropriate solution," he says.
It isn't volume that's causing congestion in the HOV lanes, Hallenbeck says: It's the freeways' design.
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Now the region's HOV network is one of the most extensive in the nation. State transportation officials say that, despite the performance-standard violations, it works well for the most part, providing buses and car pools with a significant advantage over drive-alone commuters.
But most lanes are add-ons, shoehorned into older freeways. That accounts for much of their congestion, Hallenbeck and Prestrud say.
One example: Most HOV lanes are separated from general traffic by only a paint stripe. That creates what transportation engineers call "lane friction" — if traffic in the neighboring lane is creeping along, cautious drivers in the HOV lane slow down as well, even if there's technically no reason to do so.
Bottlenecks at places such as I-5 at Northgate, where HOV lanes begin or end and cars weave between lanes, also can slow HOV speeds, Hallenbeck says.
Construction projects may ease some of those problems. Last fall, for instance, the state Transportation Department extended the HOV lane on southbound I-5 seven miles, from Kent Des-Moines Road to South 320th Street in Federal Way. Hallenbeck says his research suggests HOV-lane congestion upstream, on the notorious Southcenter Hill, improved considerably.
But engineering solutions for other bottlenecks, such as Northgate, are more complicated. "The fixes are not easy," says Prestrud. "Neither are they cheap."
Bigger advantage
Switching to HOV-3 wouldn't overcome those design flaws, Ostrom acknowledges. But he and Christopher Leman, a Seattle neighborhood activist and transportation researcher, contend it would give buses and van pools a bigger advantage over drive-alone commuting. That should be the foremost consideration, they say.
Leman points to a 1992 evaluation of the switch from HOV-3 to HOV-2 on I-5 north of Seattle: Afternoon travel times in the HOV lane increased. Buses' on-time performance slipped.
Hallenbeck doesn't disagree that HOV-3 would improve the lot of those travelers who still would qualify to use the lanes. But he suspects overall congestion in a corridor such as northbound I-5 through North King and South Snohomish counties would get worse. Most two-person car poolers would start driving alone, he says. And the HOV lanes would look emptier, fueling opposition to them that already runs deep.
The state Transportation Commission, responding to pressure from HOV critics, agreed earlier this year to open some suburban lanes to all traffic after 7 p.m.
Tough decision
Eric Gleason, service development manager for Metro Transit, says his agency isn't as interested in HOV-3 right now as it is in completing the HOV network and getting buses to and from the lanes more easily. Several "direct-access" projects linking HOV lanes with transit centers are under construction; more have been proposed.
But when HOV volumes begin to build again, "it seems to us we'll be reaching a point where we'll have to ask ourselves as a region whether we go to HOV-3," Gleason says.
The state Transportation Commission would make that decision, and Prestrud says it would be a "large and difficult" one.
Only a handful of HOV projects around the country, including lanes in New York and Houston, have been converted from HOV-2 to HOV-3 — and then only during peak periods. "When it's perceived as a takeaway, it's tougher," Ostrom says.
Eric Pryne: 206-464-2231 or epryne@seattletimes.com
From my perspective it seems to be happening already. For years my 6:30 AM commute took 13 minutes. (At 8 AM it was 45 minutes.) Now I have to leave by 6:15 for the easy drive...
The last item in particular was the issue that prevented the New York State DOT from implementing an HOV system on the Cross Westchester Expressway (I-287) north of New York City. But instead of killing the idea completely, they have put it on hold while they study an intriguing alternative -- making the entire roadway an HOV facility during the morning and evening peak periods.
Oh great. Now I have to inflate two passengers?
My wife and I worked in the same building near the Lincoln Tunnel, about 30 miles via toll road from our house. The New Jersey Turnpike has an HOV-3 lane. Since we'd often work different hours (some days I'd have to stay late, some days she'd have to stay late) and couldn't get any commuting benefit from the HOV-3 lane, we just commuted seperately most of the time. From the same house to the same office, which is about as ideal as a car pooling situation can get. If there the Turnpike had an HOV-2 lane, we would have made the effort to commute together much more often. Of course the HOV-3 lane was often almost empty, though I suppose they like it that way because the busses use it.
On the West side of Houston, the HOV configuration means that 25% of the lane capacity of the freeway carries 4% of the traffic. To make matters worse, the HOV lane is one way only and takes up the space of two normal lanes.
HOV lanes are environmentalist boondoggles.
Yeah, that's guaranteed to annoy just about everyone. Just ask Northern Virginia Freepers about those things. Of course the reaction to the HOV lane on I-287 in New Jersey was so hostile that they eventually gave up on it.
Getting rid of the carpool lanes has been a mission of Tom McClintock for years, out here in Kali.
There is a long story behind the I-287 (and I-80, too) HOV lanes in New Jersey. The public reaction was "hostile" because the public didn't understand the underlying funding mechanism. The state of New Jersey was seeking to widen I-287 and I-80 by adding a lane in each direction. The Federal Highway Administration, as a rule, is only willing to provide a 10% highway trust fund match for highway widening projects like this, but will provide a 50% match if the added lanes are HOV lanes. New Jersey DOT decided to make them HOV lanes even though they knew they wouldn't be effective (HOV lanes never work in areas dominated by suburb-to-suburb commutes) -- just to get the 50% Federal matching funds.
This isn't how the effectiveness of an HOV facility is measured. Maybe 4% of the traffic uses 25% of the lane capacity, but what portion of the travelers use it?
The Lincoln Tunnel exclusive bus lane in New Jersey is a classic case. By my reckoning, 25% of the lane capacity at the tunnel carries about 12% of the vehicles during the morning peak hour. But that 12% of the vehicles is actually carring 89% of the people who travel through the tunnel.
You'll just have to blow harder
Eventually they'll become HOV-10 lanes and only illegal aliens will be able to use them.
Not having the HOV lane is not getting rid of buses or banning carpooling. The HOV doesn't allow buses or carpooling, it is about extorting drivers into these politically correct modes of transportation.
That may sound functional until you realize that most transit systems are only affordable if they are marginal: Enough transit capacity to carry everyone would be exorbitantly expensive. Even allowing for transportation infrastructure (which you need in any case), letting the public eat the cost of the vehicles by owning, maintaining, and driving their own cars is much, much cheaper.
For the cost of each new rider for Houston Metro's current expansion plans, it would be cheaper to buy each one a Ferrari 360 Modena.
You mean...CAPTIALISM?
But that's EVIL! It means someone will make a (gasp) PROFIT and steal food from the mouths of CHILDREN--even while they're trying to finish chewing it!
Hell, we have a hard enough time getting some FReepers to sign onto the idea of capitalism.
Yeah, I've noticed.
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