Free Republic

On December 4, California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) Build North Coast Corridor (NCC) crews performed the final concrete pour to complete the underground foundation for the new Interstate 5 (I-5) bridge at the San Elijo Lagoon in the City of Encinitas. The bridge reconstruction will help relieve traffic congestion, improve lagoon tidal flows, and create new bike and pedestrian paths when complete in late 2021. “Throughout the course of this regionally significant transportation project, the efforts to reestablish the health of the San Elijo Lagoon is an achievement with regional environmental benefits,” said...

Allowing single-occupant hybrid cars to use carpool lanes – on some of Los Angeles’ busiest highways during rush hour, no less – creates crushing congestion and about $4,500 per car in adverse social costs annually. That includes increased commute times and carbon dioxide emissions, says a new study in the August edition of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. “For commuters, it means further traffic delays, and this becomes a regressive tax on carpoolers – it’s taxing due to their added time,” said study lead author Antonio Bento, associate professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and...

A man whose makeshift mannequin failed to fool police monitoring a high-occupancy vehicle lane now must hold a sign alongside the highway reading: "HOV lane not for dummies." A judge in Colorado has ordered Greg Pringle to stand alongside the road for four one-hour sessions that are scheduled to begin Monday. Pringle plans to have the mannequin with him during the sessions. He's named it "Tillie." Pringle has also paid a $100 fine. He was ticketed Jan. 26 for driving an unauthorized vehicle in a high-occupancy lane, which are open only to buses, motorcycles, vehicles carrying two or more people...

A fetus doesn't count as a passenger in the carpool lane, an Arizona judge has ruled. The Phoenix Municipal Court decision doesn't affect drivers in high-occupancy-vehicle lanes around, say, Vancouver or Toronto, but it addresses a thorny question that may have occurred to some. Candace Dickinson, 23, of Ahwatukee Foothills, Ariz., got a ticket for driving alone in an HOV lane on Interstate 10 on Nov. 8. She fought it in court on grounds that she was pregnant at the time, the Arizona Republic reported. Judge Dennis Freeman rejected her argument on Tuesday. For HOV purposes, a person is someone...

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. - Say what you want about police officers, but they are no dummies. The California Highway Patrol gave Kevin Morgan, 28, of Petaluma, a $351 citation for driving in a high occupancy vehicle or "HOV" lane with a kickboxing dummy propped in the passenger seat. The dummy was wearing a Miami Dolphins windbreaker and a baseball cap, but Officer Will Thompson noticed that the "passenger" had no legs. "When I looked inside his window, I thought, 'Oh, that's cute,'" Thompson said. "I didn't even ask him where he got it. I think he was pretty embarrassed because...

Unless a judge intervenes, the only exit ramp ferrying traffic from the Southwest Freeway into Midtown and downtown will close this week for a three-year reconstruction, leaving drivers across the Houston region scrambling to find alternate routes. U.S. District Judge David Hittner is expected to rule as early as today on a request by area residents to force the Texas Department of Transportation to delay tearing down the inbound lanes of Spur 527. The West Alabama Quality of Life Coalition argues that the neighborhoods surrounding the spur and freeway will suffer "irreparable harm" from the flood of traffic looking to...