Clogged carpool lanes could force new rules (Smug Alert!)

sfgate ^ | 9.9.06 | Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer

[BurbankKarl]

Love it...instead of cutting back the single person hybrids, they want to raise the carpool limit to 3 people!

[ansel12]

I think this is an immigration issue.

[w1andsodidwe]

I would suggest that California recognize that we all pay equally for the the roads and allow everyone access to all lanes. No one in their right mind is on those roads during rush hour unless they have to go somewhere (think work).

I avoid these like the plague during rush hour, but must sometimes go to our office in Pleasanton. It is hell to drive during rush hour. It is simply not possible to round up a couple buddies to go to work with me.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

The car pool lane is a fundametally dumb idea. Either next to no one uses it, so you effectively reduce the amount of usable roadway by one lane, or it become clogged at a low level of usage, becoming no better than the rest of the road, and possible worse.

Anyone who has driven in a carpool lane during rush hour, past the slow "normal" lanes, has almost surely notices that it is very difficult, with just a single lane, to figure out when traffic is going to suddently become jammed. Wtih three or four lanes, you can see general patters of brakelights and lane changes to figure out what is going on. With a single lane, you lose most of those visual clues, becaue you can only see the car ahead of you.

[DoughtyOne]

This is all such a crackup. I bought a hybrid but I could care less about the carpool lane. People in there generally wish to go faster than my wife and I do, and I don't particularly want to hold them back even if they are speeding.

Then there's the issue of the stickers. I'll be damned if I'm going to paste stickers on all sides of my brand new car just to satisfy the need to confirm my right to access.

Beyond that, I have always thought the carpool lanes were nonsense anyway. Most people never use them unless they have an extra family member in the car. When they're driving to work, they can't use them anyway.

Show me a freeway that wouldn't benefit from an extra lane during rush hour, and I'll show you a freeway that could use a carpool lane.

If most freeways had 25% more lanes, it would ease traffic considerably. Part of the reason why carpool lanes were developed was to cut energy consumption. Now cars sit in bumper to bumper traffic going ten miles per hour, while a perfectly good empty lane exists nearby. How much energy is that saving, tens of thousands of cars crawling along two gallons to the mile?

In order to move traffic, they have frozen it in place. Typical government fix-it scenario...

[SmoothTalker]

Even if you put these rules in place some Hybrids shouldn't count. I see no reason why a Lexus RX Hybrid that gets less than 26 mpg should get the privalege and a Honda Civic that gets 37 shouldn't. The case for letting any use these lanes is murky but I don't see a case at all for the Hybrids that don't even get great gas mileage where the Hybrid tech is used to up power.

[M_Man]

These "Diamond lanes" are an enviro-facist plot!

They don't make traffic flow faster, in fact they make congestion worse- with the attending smog increase.

They are there to punish the rest of us into car pooling.

The Greenies are ruining California now that they've got the power.

A study published late last week said that the SF Metro Transportation Board (or whatever it's called) is spending way too much on mass transit in lieu of highway infrastructure.

This is California, everyone who wants to is already taking mass transit.

If they made the trains faster and cheaper than driving, they might pick up a few percent more ridership, but it'll take shock therapy to get Californians out of our cars!

Ever since Governor Moonbeam, Less is Less...

[Toby06]

From what I see, if you culd just get the fags in hybrids to run 90 like us normal folks, they wouldn't clog the roads

[doug from upland]

Absolutely an immigration issue. Get rid of 8 million people in California and we can drive on our freeways again. That was demonstrated when the invaders went on strike.

[M_Man]

I'm with you Toby06!

I hate the way hybrid drivers go slower than traffic to show off how environmentelly concious they are.

Poseurs!

[ansel12]

"Absolutely an immigration issue. Get rid of 8 million people in California and we can drive on our freeways again. That was demonstrated when the invaders went on strike."


Without the immigration law of 1965 we would have about 60 to 90 million fewer people in America, and less social upheaval, and much shorter commutes.

[taxesareforever]

Carpool lanes are the political way of trying to force commuters to utilize subsidized mass transit. It isn't working and they won't admit it.

[Toby06]

Poseurs!

Is that french for fag?

[B Knotts]

Didn't some of the diamond lanes in Southern California used to be 3 or more people?

[Cobra64]

From what I see, if you culd just get the fags in hybrids to run 90 like us normal folks, they wouldn't clog the roads

True. They're trying to see if they can squeeze another 10 mpg out of a gallon of gas by driving 30 mph.

[Toby06]

Wait a sec! I have absolutely zero beef with anyone who drives to conserve. I seriously have a beef with those who try to inflict their lifestyle on others, though.

[nutmeg]

[SoldierDad]

So, they'll have to put people on the roof of the hybrid's to get to the 3 person limit?

[Toby06]

As long as tehy don't hold up traffic, I'm cool with it.

What most hybride drivers do not realize is that their car is sold on a lie. In order to meet CAFE standards, hybrids are not tested the same as real cars.

[Herakles]

Hybrids; what type of phony marketing crap will these bozos think of next; even worst, what simplistic naive story will people believe next? I have an idea: let's all jump on the magic star ship enterprise and explore the galaxy!

I am so blown away by how embarrassingly stupid people are. I know thermodynamics is a tough subject; but people, you really have to at least try! You can not violate the 1st and second laws of thermodynamics. The only reason "hybrids" get better gas mileage is because of the power to weight ratio. Get a really light vehicle and drop an 80 HP engine in it and the gas mileage has got to go up. There is nothing magic about it!