Free Republic

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...

Three years ago, Massachusetts passed the most sweeping healthcare bill in the country, adopting a plan that closely resembles the proposals being considered by Congress. It is a plan that now offers powerful lessons for the whole nation. The state's system, like the proposals moving toward votes in the House and Senate, focused on three goals: making medical insurance almost universal, fostering competition through a regulated insurance exchange, and helping low-income workers pay for coverage. Today, Massachusetts leads the nation with 96% of its residents covered by insurance -- an even larger share than some of the plans before Congress...

As with the weather, a lot of people complain about the U. S. Tax Code, but few do anything about it. The reality is that the opportunity to do something about the tax code doesn't come around very often; maybe once per generation but now, in the year 2005, we have that opportunity. For the sake of all Americans and future generations of Americans, we must not squander this chance. The President made tax reform one of the main objectives for his second term. He has vowed to reform the tax code, to make it "pro-growth, simple and easy to...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The nation's longest-running school desegregation lawsuit was officially ended after 47 years when a federal judge signed a settlement agreement and dismissed the case. Amid clapping and mutual congratulation, U.S. District Judge James Brady on Thursday ended the suit with a paraphrase from William Faulkner - ``at some point the law ends and people begin.'' Brady then signed the settlement on a desk wheeled onto the steps of the federal courthouse for the occasion. Despite the jubilation, some viewed the settlement as a hollow victory. Middle-class whites have largely abandoned this city's beleaguered, 45,000-student school...