Posted on 09/08/2006 10:36:20 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Federal authorities could force Caltrans to kick hybrid vehicles out of congested carpool lanes or require drivers of non-hybrids to pick up an extra passenger to gain admission to overused lanes.
And that could help unclog carpool lanes in the Bay Area, most of which have become commute-hour slogs, according to a Caltrans report compiled after more than 50,000 hybrids were given access to the lanes.
The report found that carpool lanes on Interstates 80 and 880 and Highways 101, 4, 85 and 237 have gone from being relatively free-flowing routes in spring 2005 to stop-and-go congestion this past spring. It recommends that no additional carpool lane stickers be issued to hybrids once the state-imposed cap of 75,000 is reached -- which could be within weeks, according to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Federal law allows states to admit certain hybrids into diamond lanes even if they have just one occupant. But the law also requires states to continuously monitor the lanes and to restrict or discontinue access to solo hybrid drivers when the lanes get too congested.
Yet a bill before the governor would allow 10,000 more hybrids to get the coveted yellow stickers that permit entrance to carpool lanes. The bill would also extend that access, now set to expire in 2008, for an additional three years. The governor's office said Friday evening that the governor had not yet taken a position on the bill.
Federal highway officials have met with Caltrans to discuss the impact of hybrids on carpool lanes, said Gene Fong, chief of the Federal Highway Administration's California division. He said more talks will focus on the findings in the Caltrans report.
"We need to have a conversation with Caltrans about what they intend to do going forward,'' he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The HOV lanes in Dallas are only open a few hours per day. I (almost always) have more than one person in the car but I avoid rush hour. The HOV lanes just remove useful concrete from traffic.
Some places set the HOV limit to 50 and even 100. This is to make it an Emergency services only lane (even buses can't use this lane).
In most places, the HOV lane is more for emergency response and for cops to watch the traffic. Emergency services like those lanes because of the lighter traffic in them.
Doc, are you saying that the HOV lanes carry No Traffic except during rush hours?
They are only one lane. Thus they switch from incoming to outgoing in the morning and afternoon rush. Other times they are closed.
However, the TDOT is building more of these. I guess the idea is to get traffic so bad that the Corridor will be needed.
When rightwingers like me rule the country, these will be called SUV lanes.
Other than increasing traffic and thus causing hardship for regular people, of course.
I haven't driven LBJ since Bush opened past I-35, but the HOV lanes on 635 (LBJ) used to be open 24 hours a day. The one on I 30 east was a single lane that was reversed, so it was inbound in the morning, outbound in the evening. There were some time of day reversible lanes on I-35 at LBJ as well as I recall. (Looked it up. I was basically right. There are some 24 hour lanes on I-35 north of LBJ, and some HOV lanes on 67 south. The time of day lanes are generally 6am - 9am inbound and 3:30 pm to 7 pm outbound.)
Go here for maps, time of day restrictions, and ramp/crossover locations http://www.dart.org/riding.asp?zeon=maphov
They are going with a pair of full time lanes on US 75 north the last I heard.
Of course, the US 75 expansion was planned when the HOV lanes would have been used by express busses. The express busses have been taken out of service on that route; they were replaced by a highly sucessful light rail line. And the HOV lanes aren't really going to go anywhere.
I see no reason why either one should. What in the heck does mpg have to do with anything?
I really think it's time someone spelled out explicitly what the Purpose of carpool lanes is, so that we could actually measure whether they achieve this Purpose. As things are, nobody really knows what the purpose is, so everyone feels free to project their own values onto them. You think that whether a car is allowed into the carpool lane should be influenced by how many mpg it gets. Why? Is the Purpose of carpool lanes to reduce national gasoline consumption?
If so, then we'd be getting somewhere! Because I'll bet anything that carpool lanes do no such thing. Getting a handful of people to arrange carpools in exchange for causing increased traffic jams where 98% of cars sit idling and braking, is not a tradeoff that has any chance whatsoever of reducing nationwide gasoline usage.
Also, then perhaps we could have a second conversation: why is "reducing nationwide gasoline usage" a valid, legitimate goal of public policy?
Fantastic, I think hybrids in car pool lanes are a travesty. Heck, car pool lanes themselves are a travesty of misguided government.
So, what? I have to go have ANOTHER baby in order to whiz by the hardworking Californians waiting in the other 4 lanes? Well, if it's for LA traffic, I guess I can do it...
Because no one can easily carpool here so the lanes help those of us with a Rush Baby on Board more than anyone else.
Bingo. They are doing the exact same thing in the Puget Sound, it's costing tens of Billion$, and making congestion much, much worse.
Take a look at an I405 traffic cam during rush hour, and you see two lanes packed solid and stopped dead and the third almost completely empty.
It's one thing to have a diamond lane if you have 4 or 5 general purpose lanes, but they're giving up 1/3 of the lanes to carpooling, which thay have finally admitted means Mass Transit.
Mass Transit means not stopping by stores on the 3-4 hour ride home, which means tax revenue goes down, which mean more taxes to make up for the loss, on top of more taxes for more mass transit lanes and train track and the big dig/aqueduct, etc, etc.
Our state and local taxes are up over 100% per capita in ten years and this mess is just getting started...
Nobody beats Washington when it comes to HOV stupidity. Interstate 66 inside the Beltway, between Vienna, VA and the Potomac, is HOV-3--THE ENTIRE HIGHWAY--during rush hour. In the mornings all of the eastbound lanes are HOV-3, and in the afternoons, all the westbound lanes heading back out to the burbs. So if you've got to get into DC from the west in the morning, and you aren't HOV? Surface streets for you--US 50 or US 29, mainly, both of which are stop-and-go stoplight-laden parking lots.
The reason? Parts of I-66 are still only two lanes each way despite running through heavily-built-up areas of Arlington. They won't or can't expand the highway to add capacity, even dedicated carpool lanes, so they make the entire highway a carpool lane. A couple of times when I lived up there--and this was almost twenty years ago--I rode the Metro in from Vienna to DC in the afternoons to run errands in DC, and I'd see the inbound (east) lanes clogged up, but the outbound (west) lanes were almost empty at 4:30 in the afternoon. Because they were HOV only. Twenty years later and they STILL haven't expanded I-66 and it's STILL carpool-only during rush hour. Total insanity.
}:-)4
Blame it on Bush. If he hadn't invaded Iraq, this never would have been a problem. Now even other countries hate us because we have messed up the pristine HOV lanes.
Regenerative brakes can help in city driving.
Running an internal combustion engine at near constant speed can be more efficient then a standard mechanical drive train.
Your mileage may vary.
Hybrids give you a lot of temporary hp when the electric motors and the gas motors are both running.
This is an ideal situation. It is like having a v-8 for some of the time and a 4 cyl. for cruising.
When you need to accel, the electrics do it for you and when you cruise, the 4 cyl. gas does that so you can put a small engine in and still get v-8 performance.
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