Fuck carpool lanes

[Borgholio]

Part rant part discussion. Lately I've been getting increasingly pissed at the current implementation of carpool lanes. In theory, carpooling reduces traffic and pollution by reducing the number of cars on the road while increasing the average speed of traffic. That makes a lot of sense, on paper at least. Trouble is that in the real world, it falls flat on it's ass. A few observations that I have made regarding the carpool situation in Southern CA.

1. Carpool lanes are often mostly empty. That space would be better used for a normal lane instead of being effectively (or sometimes literally) blocked off.
2. Many people who carpool were going to do it anyways for economic reasons (my wife and I save $200 a month in gas by carpooling to a Park and Ride instead of driving separately the whole way). A carpool lane isn't going to encourage people to carpool if they have to drive in separate directions for work.
3. Carpool lanes are poorly designed. With restricted access in or out (and sometimes even literally blocked by concrete dividers), you can be quite easily screwed if there is a slow driver or an accident in front of you. Not to mention often having to cut over 4 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic to get to your exit.

Basically, carpool lanes are shit. They don't help alleviate traffic or pollution, and they don't provide enough incentive for people to carpool when they otherwise would not. There is work going on in the Los Angeles / Orange County area to have toll roads and express lanes in the hopes that they help with traffic while providing income for the city. They are proving to be a failure (at least from what I've seen) since people are not willing to spend money to shave 5 minutes off their commute normally.

What would work better than the current system? I have a few ideas.

1. Allow normal traffic and get rid of enter / exit restrictions. Having one or two extra normal lanes filled to capacity would help more with the overall traffic situation than having one under-utilized lane.
2. Keep carpool lanes but provide an incentive for people to actually use it. Similar to a toll road transponder, you would put a device in your car that is read by sensors in the carpool lane. Combined with a camera to make sure you actually do have passengers, you can get paid by the city / county for using the lane. This would encourage people to carpool more since they're getting paid for doing so. They city won't make money, but it would help with traffic and pollution (the stated reasons behind carpooling anyways)
3. Make carpool lanes for dedicated large vehicles only. Trucks, buses, etc... Their size and speed cause a great deal of traffic anyways, so give them their own lane.

Thoughts?

[Elheru Aran]

I think your #3 (dedicated large vehicles) is pretty decent.

However often there are regulations on those kind of vehicles anyway-- for example often they're required to stay on the two right lanes, do not enter inner-city exits, etc (obviously for commuter buses they can go into the city).

Congestion is more an issue of American car culture gone wrong than poor urban design...

[Borgholio]

Congestion is more an issue of American car culture gone wrong than poor urban design...

I always thought it was both. Good urban design would involve sufficient mass transit to get people where they want to go without the need to drive everywhere.

[Adam Reynolds]

Congestion is more an issue of American car culture gone wrong than poor urban design...

I always thought it was both. Good urban design would involve sufficient mass transit to get people where they want to go without the need to drive everywhere.

But the reason that America has such lousy urban design is because of car culture.

[Elheru Aran]

Congestion is more an issue of American car culture gone wrong than poor urban design...

I always thought it was both. Good urban design would involve sufficient mass transit to get people where they want to go without the need to drive everywhere.

But the reason that America has such lousy urban design is because of car culture.

The car culture doesn't lead to the urban design entirely though. With many cities we're talking about a layout and infrastructure that existed *before* car culture became a thing. Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, etcetera, are largely designed with a horse-and-carriage mindset when it comes to the older parts of the city, the 'downtown' or 'inner city' regions. The highways and such are shoe-horned into that old layout. It's a matter of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

Suburbs, now, you can credit those largely to the rise of automobiles in the US. They offered city dwellers a chance to live outside the city but still be able to work in the city, thanks to being able to commute. It's fairly notable that they didn't become a thing until after WWII-- precisely pretty much when cars started booming in the US.

Are there any cities in the US that have sprung up since, say, the 1940's or so, designed with cars and urban transportation in mind? Because I'm not sure there are any... I know there are towns and such, but certainly no large cities.

Of course, this doesn't really address the central concern of carpool lanes, but there you go, might as well examine the history and culture of highway design in the US. Learn somethin' every day, folks

[Borgholio]

Our quite decent streetcar system was actually dismantled at the behest of General Motors starting in the 1930's. :-/

[Havok]

Everyone should ride motorcycles.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

#3 is essentially how Bogota, Colombia mitigated their congestion nightmares. Instead of spending many billions of dollars the city couldn't afford on new elevated highways, they closed off a lane of the existing ones to cars. Now that the buses had their own lane, they could sail through what would previously have been a bumper-to-bumper parking lot at full speed. Once people realized that they could get somewhere a lot faster by bus, ridership skyrocketed and having so many fewer cars on the road meant less congestion than there had been previously even with 1 fewer car lane. Residents spent less time in traffic and reached their destinations more quickly no matter how they traveled and the exorbitant sums of money for new highways proved unnecessary. The ability of a city in the third-world with crushing poverty to accomplish something like that makes the continued self-inflicted traffic wounds of so many US cities (*cough* Los Angeles *cough*) all the more pathetic.

[Tribble]

Borgholio, when you refer to car pool lanes, are you also referring to bus-only lanes?

[Borgholio]

Depends on how well utilized they are. If the freeway is bumper to bumper and buses only run once every 30 seconds or so then yeah, I would be referring to them as well. I think that any dedicated lane which isn't used to any reasonable capacity is a waste of space.

[Tribble]

Depends on how well utilized they are. If the freeway is bumper to bumper and buses only run once every 30 seconds or so then yeah, I would be referring to them as well. I think that any dedicated lane which isn't used to any reasonable capacity is a waste of space.

My understanding is that the theoretical capacity of a freeway lane is ~2,000 cars per hour. I don't know what the transportation statistics are in California, but I do know that in Ontario the average number of riders per car is ~1,200/1,000, or 1.2 per car. This would translate to ~2,400 riders per hour per freeway lane of traffic in ideal conditions. The actual capacity tends to be lower than this, especially when traffic is bumper-to-bumper. But I'll use it as an example.

Under your scenario, one bus every 30 seconds would translate to 120 buses per hour. Again, I can't speak for buses in California, but in Toronto we use buses which can carry ~60 passengers and articulated buses which carry ~90. The capacity of the bus only lane in your scenario would be ~ 7,200 - 10,800 passengers per hour, depending on which bus was used. Of course, the actual usage may vary, but chances are if the route is running buses every 30 seconds its going to be pretty busy.

The "empty space" between buses can be very deceptive. The bus lane may still be carrying far more people than the car lane next to it, especially when the traffic is bumper to bumper.

[Channel72]

The only time carpool lanes (we call them "HOV" lanes, for "High Occupancy Vehicle") seem to work well is during rush hour, when the other 2 lanes are bumper-to-bumper. Under those conditions, the car pool lanes are usually moving smoothly. I suppose it's because commuters driving home from work are usually alone.

[Patroklos]

Two things:

1.) I don't like my current areas HOV lanes for their intended purpose, I like them because they allow the VDOT to reverse those lanes depending on the rush hour requirements. We have the type that are built on the median with dedicated on and off ramps, so they can be very quickly reversed. During rush hour they are open to everyone and this helps reduce the prevalence for underutilized freeway miles during off hours.

2.) There was a thread recently that talked about building charging capacity into dedicated slow lanes to help make electric cars more viable. I could see those HOV lanes being repurposed to this.

[Civil War Man]

Traffic problems can also result from poor highway design. For example, let's say there's a piece of highway that has an exit a short distance away from the on-ramp of the previous exit. Traffic coming from the on-ramp is going to inherently be slower, especially if it is connected to a street with a lower speed limit like an urban or residential area. So you have slower cars attempting to merge onto the highway in order to pick up speed. At the same time, you have cars from the faster lanes trying to merge into the same lane order to take the next exit, so they have to slow down to the same speed or slower. In that case, there is nothing long-term you can do to fix the traffic problems caused by that short of either reducing the number of vehicles on the road or tearing up that stretch of highway and redesigning it completely.

For the record, this example is pulled straight from an area I know. It's a section of I-95 North in Providence, RI. The on-ramp is coming from Downtown, right next to a mall and several hotels, while the exit goes to the State government's facilities. Traffic is slow there even at the best of times.

[Elheru Aran]

Certainly highways can be designed poorly, that does happen. It goes along with the whole historic layout of cities, lack of mass transit resulting in massive numbers of individuals in cars, etcetera...

One measure that has been taken recently in the Atlanta area is to make a few sections of highway toll roads of some sort-- I am frankly unfamiliar with the setup, it's in an area rather a long way from where I live-- but it's something involving something called a "PeachPass" where people get to ride on certain lanes for paying a monthly fee. Something like that. A lot of people aren't fans.

[Borgholio]

but it's something involving something called a "PeachPass" where people get to ride on certain lanes for paying a monthly fee. Something like that. A lot of people aren't fans.

Yeah we have "Express Lanes" which are basically special lanes where you pay a toll to drive in them. Not a full toll road since it's part of the main freeway but more like toll lanes. Doesn't really work that well since people would seemingly rather sit in traffic for half an hour than pay 5 or 10 bucks to bypass it.

[Irbis]

1. Carpool lanes are often mostly empty. That space would be better used for a normal lane instead of being effectively (or sometimes literally) blocked off.

Wrong. Anything that shows people they're stupid for being single person in a car is specifically designed to do so. Cities don't need more congestion, if even 10% of people starts carpooling due to this it's a net plus.

In fact, European cities go for even more radical things, such as closing city centre for car traffic entirely, making whole inner city paid parking zone, or razing parking lots and turning them into public parks. If it pisses people off, it's because that's the whole point. 'Carrot only' approach doesn't work.

2. Many people who carpool were going to do it anyways for economic reasons (my wife and I save $200 a month in gas by carpooling to a Park and Ride instead of driving separately the whole way). A carpool lane isn't going to encourage people to carpool if they have to drive in separate directions for work.

So what? That has nothing to do with carpool lanes. You might as well complain you can't use highway on a bike.

3. Carpool lanes are poorly designed. With restricted access in or out (and sometimes even literally blocked by concrete dividers), you can be quite easily screwed if there is a slow driver or an accident in front of you. Not to mention often having to cut over 4 lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic to get to your exit.

That's dumb, but otherwise people would abuse it too much. There is only so much you can do with existing road layout.

Basically, carpool lanes are shit. They don't help alleviate traffic or pollution, and they don't provide enough incentive for people to carpool when they otherwise would not.

What you'd do then? And also, studies proved that yes, they do.

1. Allow normal traffic and get rid of enter / exit restrictions. Having one or two extra normal lanes filled to capacity would help more with the overall traffic situation than having one under-utilized lane.

Nope. It was tried already. All it does is inviting more traffic in to fill the space. Seriously, people tried to build 12 lane roads, take a look how well it works:

Hell, even 22 lanes with orbital roads block, nope, brute-forcing the issue isn't a solution:

2. Keep carpool lanes but provide an incentive for people to actually use it. Similar to a toll road transponder, you would put a device in your car that is read by sensors in the carpool lane. Combined with a camera to make sure you actually do have passengers, you can get paid by the city / county for using the lane. This would encourage people to carpool more since they're getting paid for doing so. They city won't make money, but it would help with traffic and pollution (the stated reasons behind carpooling anyways)

So complicated, expensive scheme that can most likely be fooled by cardboard cut-out as opposed to something requiring literally bucket of paint?

Also, you just said people aren't willing to spend a few $ to drive faster. What makes you think they would pay for such a system, of will find tiny payout enough to start carpooling?

3. Make carpool lanes for dedicated large vehicles only. Trucks, buses, etc... Their size and speed cause a great deal of traffic anyways, so give them their own lane.

No, bus lane should also be a carpool lane. Or, if you want to go more radical, bus lane and a carpool lane next to normal one

[Borgholio]

Wrong. Anything that shows people they're stupid for being single person in a car is specifically designed to do so. Cities don't need more congestion, if even 10% of people starts carpooling due to this it's a net plus.

Except we don't do 10% of people. We do far less than that. When you have bumper to bumper traffic in the main lanes and the single carpool lane is wide open with one car every 10 seconds, then that lane is under-utilized. Maybe in Europe you have better use of carpool lanes, but here in California people simply don't use them.

In fact, European cities go for even more radical things, such as closing city centre for car traffic entirely, making whole inner city paid parking zone, or razing parking lots and turning them into public parks. If it pisses people off, it's because that's the whole point. 'Carrot only' approach doesn't work.

The politicians here who would make such decisions are too pussified to make those kinds of sweeping changes, even if they would be for the better.

So what? That has nothing to do with carpool lanes. You might as well complain you can't use highway on a bike.

Carpool lanes are supposed to be an incentive to...you know...carpool. They don't work. People who carpool only really do it for their own economic benefit. Even when my wife and I carpool, we tend to stay out of that lane. I have never spoken with anybody who started to carpool specifically because of the existence of a carpool lane.

That's dumb, but otherwise people would abuse it too much. There is only so much you can do with existing road layout.

The problem with the road layout IS the carpool lane in these cases. A lot of work and money goes into creating separate lanes for carpoolers rather than widening existing lanes. They would be better off in just not putting up the barriers in the first place.

What you'd do then? And also, studies proved that yes, they do.

Can you provide links to said studies? I'm not calling you out, I am genuinely curious.

Hell, even 22 lanes with orbital roads block, nope, brute-forcing the issue isn't a solution:

Where are those two pictures from?

So complicated, expensive scheme that can most likely be fooled by cardboard cut-out as opposed to something requiring literally bucket of paint?

No more complicated than the current toll transponder system with an added red-light camera setup.

Also, you just said people aren't willing to spend a few $ to drive faster. What makes you think they would pay for such a system, of will find tiny payout enough to start carpooling?

Better than the current system where they already don't use the carpool lanes AND have no incentive to do so.

No, bus lane should also be a carpool lane. Or, if you want to go more radical, bus lane and a carpool lane next to normal one

If we had enough buses, sure. We have way more trucks on the road than buses, so letting ALL large vehicles have a lane of their own would probably be a better idea.