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One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a sense) everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari or a 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the

One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a sense) everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari or a 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the same traffic. HOV/carpool lanes are an understandable conceit to incentivize good behaviors, but the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels awful to me. Those transponders are cool though. I have a different one for my electric car with a CAV sticker which lets me use some of the SoCal lanes alone.

slg 5y ago
>the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels awful to me. This is no different from any toll road except the toll road and the free road are right next to each other and are therefore perfect substitutes with the only difference being the amount of traffic on each.
- toast0 5y ago
  Yeah, toll roads don't feel right either. Of course, it also didn't feel right to buy a PHEV with carpool stickers, but I did it when my carpool partner took leave. Free charging at work was nice too (thanks Mark), although I was happier when I could take Caltrain.
marcinzm 5y ago
>but the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels awful to me. Plenty of places in the US have whole highways that require payment to use. Same for most tunnels and bridges that you can go around but it takes significantly longer.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
  Yeah, I was going to point out - aren't toll roads a thing?
  - rzimmerman 5y ago
    I’m in California where toll roads are more rare. I also dislike tolls on roads, though I understand the pragmatism.
- ra7 5y ago
  Like Texas. It's littered with toll highways.
  - outworlder 5y ago
    I thought Texas was supposed to be 'cheap' and 'low taxes'? That's how they make up the difference. That, and property taxes.
    - txsoftwaredev 5y ago
      It was until everyone from CA and other areas started moving in during Covid.
vmception 5y ago
> One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a sense) everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari or a 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the same traffic. Where is it different?
- rzimmerman 5y ago
  Sorry - just speaking about my own experience and implying that an important “American value” to me is classlessness, which seems to erode over time. Thanks for calling me out on that. I don’t think this is different anywhere in the world.
- bombcar 5y ago
  I've heard (could be rumor) that the "high speed highways" in Japan are toll roads with tolls so high basically nobody uses them. Maybe that's an example?
  - darkengine 5y ago
    Japan's expressways are privatized and tolled per-kilometer. They are competing with long-distance train lines, so the toll is in the same ballpark as a train ticket (about 13000 yen or $110 from Tokyo to Osaka). The privatization of the expressways was pretty much enabled by the viability of the rail networks, which are also mostly privatized, mostly profitable, and extremely well-built.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      My first thought was "that's enormous", but that's still smaller than the IRS standard deductible for mileage.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Though it's the toll only and doesn't include all the other costs (car, gas, etc).
sjburt 5y ago
Well, if you are wealthy enough you hire a driver and somehow that counts as a carpool, at least in LA.
- samhw 5y ago
  Hahaha, this is the best thing I've read all day. That's fantastic. I knew there would be a way for rich people to get around it. (Like when my friend got around COVID restrictions travelling to Mexico by just taking his dad's plane [since lots of the restrictions applied only to passenger jets due to transmission risk].)
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    Define "get around it"? I would have said "it" was paying more to use the fast lane, and hiring a driver is definitely paying more.
- rzimmerman 5y ago
  Or like a VC I once spoke with listening to a rideshare pitch: “I’m not your target market. I drive alone in my Bentley in the carpool lane. I don’t care if I get a $400 ticket.”
jffry 5y ago
There is a highway near Washington DC (I-66) that has dual-rate HOV lanes like this. During peak rush hour times, the lanes are free to vehicles with 2+ people, but solo drivers can also opt to pay to use them. They wanted to ensure that the HOV lanes move fast enough that the people who are carpooling will actually be rewarded for doing so. This meant that there had to be a dynamic toll for solo drivers. Imagine the outrage when on a particularly busy day, this dynamic toll exceeded $20 for a ten-mile journey. The reality is plenty of people were cheating and using the HOV lanes as solo drivers, and now the tolling mechanism means they can no longer get away with it.
supernova87a 5y ago
Well, one practical response to this is that the toll lanes do not really cause other lanes to be slower (than what it was before), even though it feels like some group is being allowed to bypass everyone else. In the sense that -- suppose that you have a 4 lane highway. Adding a 5th lane will actually not help much to increase the capacity of the highway if it is traffic-bottlenecked. For certain traffic volumes and lane configurations, adding lanes doesn't increase throughput. So having a toll lane basically just helps to generate revenue from people who are willing to pay (and allow those who are willing to pay to drive slightly faster past traffic), while not significantly slowing down most other people (who already experienced congestion in certain stretches of highway before this). Now, whether this feels fair and is a good idea is a different question (and clearly generates a lot of opinions).
QuarterReptile 5y ago
In a very significant way, this is not true. Everyone is paying with their time and losing it irreparably to a wasteful process, yes, but the quality of that time varies enormously with how much you spend. On the low end, you're sitting in an old car with significant road noise, a mushy clutch on your manual transmission, crappy speakers to listen to your podcasts via cassette adapter. weak/no air conditioning, windows that let most of the light through, and you're sitting low because your cheap 1990s car wasn't built for highway warfare. At the other end of the spectrum, you're sitting on an air-conditioned leather seat in a brand-new electric SUV with tint so dark that for some reason it is only legal in SUVs, taking calls with a good microphone array and excellent speakers; you're also sitting high up in a vehicle equipped for modern highway warfare, but you barely even notice because your car's radar/lidar is doing most of the spacing and lane-keeping for you anyway. So, yes, everyone's sitting around waiting, but it's the difference between sitting at home in your living room and sitting in the DMV.
- rzimmerman 5y ago
  I guess I just like the idea that whether or not you have a nice car/experience, it still takes just as long to get there. Not advocating anything - I just appreciate the abstract equalizer of the road.
asah 5y ago
yep, all equal - fees, fines and costs (e.g. fuel) are the same fraction of your income whether you make $10,000 per year or $10,000,000 per year. /s

slg 5y ago

>the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels awful to me. This is no different from any toll road except the toll road and the free road are right next to each other and are therefore perfect substitutes with the only difference being the amount of traffic on each.

toast0 5y ago
Yeah, toll roads don't feel right either. Of course, it also didn't feel right to buy a PHEV with carpool stickers, but I did it when my carpool partner took leave. Free charging at work was nice too (thanks Mark), although I was happier when I could take Caltrain.

marcinzm 5y ago

>but the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels awful to me. Plenty of places in the US have whole highways that require payment to use. Same for most tunnels and bridges that you can go around but it takes significantly longer.

SketchySeaBeast 5y ago
Yeah, I was going to point out - aren't toll roads a thing?
- rzimmerman 5y ago
  I’m in California where toll roads are more rare. I also dislike tolls on roads, though I understand the pragmatism.
ra7 5y ago
Like Texas. It's littered with toll highways.
- outworlder 5y ago
  I thought Texas was supposed to be 'cheap' and 'low taxes'? That's how they make up the difference. That, and property taxes.
  - txsoftwaredev 5y ago
    It was until everyone from CA and other areas started moving in during Covid.

vmception 5y ago

> One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a sense) everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari or a 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the same traffic. Where is it different?

rzimmerman 5y ago
Sorry - just speaking about my own experience and implying that an important “American value” to me is classlessness, which seems to erode over time. Thanks for calling me out on that. I don’t think this is different anywhere in the world.
bombcar 5y ago
I've heard (could be rumor) that the "high speed highways" in Japan are toll roads with tolls so high basically nobody uses them. Maybe that's an example?
- darkengine 5y ago
  Japan's expressways are privatized and tolled per-kilometer. They are competing with long-distance train lines, so the toll is in the same ballpark as a train ticket (about 13000 yen or $110 from Tokyo to Osaka). The privatization of the expressways was pretty much enabled by the viability of the rail networks, which are also mostly privatized, mostly profitable, and extremely well-built.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    My first thought was "that's enormous", but that's still smaller than the IRS standard deductible for mileage.
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Though it's the toll only and doesn't include all the other costs (car, gas, etc).

sjburt 5y ago

Well, if you are wealthy enough you hire a driver and somehow that counts as a carpool, at least in LA.

samhw 5y ago
Hahaha, this is the best thing I've read all day. That's fantastic. I knew there would be a way for rich people to get around it. (Like when my friend got around COVID restrictions travelling to Mexico by just taking his dad's plane [since lots of the restrictions applied only to passenger jets due to transmission risk].)
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  Define "get around it"? I would have said "it" was paying more to use the fast lane, and hiring a driver is definitely paying more.
rzimmerman 5y ago
Or like a VC I once spoke with listening to a rideshare pitch: “I’m not your target market. I drive alone in my Bentley in the carpool lane. I don’t care if I get a $400 ticket.”

jffry 5y ago

There is a highway near Washington DC (I-66) that has dual-rate HOV lanes like this. During peak rush hour times, the lanes are free to vehicles with 2+ people, but solo drivers can also opt to pay to use them. They wanted to ensure that the HOV lanes move fast enough that the people who are carpooling will actually be rewarded for doing so. This meant that there had to be a dynamic toll for solo drivers. Imagine the outrage when on a particularly busy day, this dynamic toll exceeded $20 for a ten-mile journey. The reality is plenty of people were cheating and using the HOV lanes as solo drivers, and now the tolling mechanism means they can no longer get away with it.

supernova87a 5y ago

Well, one practical response to this is that the toll lanes do not really cause other lanes to be slower (than what it was before), even though it feels like some group is being allowed to bypass everyone else. In the sense that -- suppose that you have a 4 lane highway. Adding a 5th lane will actually not help much to increase the capacity of the highway if it is traffic-bottlenecked. For certain traffic volumes and lane configurations, adding lanes doesn't increase throughput. So having a toll lane basically just helps to generate revenue from people who are willing to pay (and allow those who are willing to pay to drive slightly faster past traffic), while not significantly slowing down most other people (who already experienced congestion in certain stretches of highway before this). Now, whether this feels fair and is a good idea is a different question (and clearly generates a lot of opinions).

QuarterReptile 5y ago

In a very significant way, this is not true. Everyone is paying with their time and losing it irreparably to a wasteful process, yes, but the quality of that time varies enormously with how much you spend. On the low end, you're sitting in an old car with significant road noise, a mushy clutch on your manual transmission, crappy speakers to listen to your podcasts via cassette adapter. weak/no air conditioning, windows that let most of the light through, and you're sitting low because your cheap 1990s car wasn't built for highway warfare. At the other end of the spectrum, you're sitting on an air-conditioned leather seat in a brand-new electric SUV with tint so dark that for some reason it is only legal in SUVs, taking calls with a good microphone array and excellent speakers; you're also sitting high up in a vehicle equipped for modern highway warfare, but you barely even notice because your car's radar/lidar is doing most of the spacing and lane-keeping for you anyway. So, yes, everyone's sitting around waiting, but it's the difference between sitting at home in your living room and sitting in the DMV.

rzimmerman 5y ago
I guess I just like the idea that whether or not you have a nice car/experience, it still takes just as long to get there. Not advocating anything - I just appreciate the abstract equalizer of the road.

asah 5y ago

yep, all equal - fees, fines and costs (e.g. fuel) are the same fraction of your income whether you make $10,000 per year or $10,000,000 per year. /s