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I feel like a simpler system would be to just charge the same for vehicles using these lanes regardless of occupants. A higher cost will incentivize more occupa

I feel like a simpler system would be to just charge the same for vehicles using these lanes regardless of occupants. A higher cost will incentivize more occupants anyway. Of course in that system there would be no HOV lane incentive to drive electric vehicles, but so what? They have already been subsidized through tax breaks and we could always incentivize them further by increasing gas taxes. It just seems to me that a system like this is trying to incentivize different things and letting enforcement get to complicated. Just keep it simple and it won't be so bad. I think the point of these lanes should be to improve traffic flow by increasing the number of occupants in the cars. Electric vehicles simply do not achieve that. That said in a way I don't think this system is too terrible. It's a little funny, but it's at least fairly simple. But it requires enforcement. I've done a lot of driving throughout California recently and it seems like half the people in carpool lanes shouldn't be there. And apparently I'm the last person in the state that doesn't roll across the solid double lanes whenever I feel like it. Never have I seen a cop care about this stuff.

Handytinge 5y ago
For anyone else not North American, "HOV" stands for "High Occupancy Vehicle".
gridspy 5y ago
Both tolls or the requirement to have an "expensive car" (electric) quickly become discrimination against poor people. Possibly unintentional discrimination. I think it should be simple occupancy based only - vehicles with 3 occupants or more only.
- dublinben 5y ago
  Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory. Even if it were, the most direct way to address it would be to just give money to people who lack it, or offer a means-tested discount. "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, are more likely to depend on public transportation and suffer the consequences of living near polluted highways. They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    >Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory. Would you be saying this if we were talking about high commuter rail fares or park fees that are used as a backhanded way to "class up the place"? Because that's basically what tolls are. >"Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, Not in the context of toll roads. They don't go an extra 5mi to whole foods. They don't take frivolous trips. But none of that is what tolls are trying to solve. Tolls are trying to solve peak commute hour demand. This is a use case where poor people wind up using roads (or any other form of transit) proportionately more than the wealthy because their jobs tend to be less flexible. Yes, they drive proportionately less for cross-town type stuff and a little less for commuting (because you can't justify a long commute for a poorly paid job) but the ones that do drive don't deserve to be the first kicked off the road so a bunch of HNers can drive 5mph faster. >They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes. What? What? Do you seriously believe this? Poor people benefit massively from reduced cost (in time, money and frustration) because their other options are more curtailed so being able to economically justify a trip to Walmart to save 10% over the local option (or whatever) or a different commute to a job that pays marginally more is of larger benefit.
  - alpha_squared 5y ago
    > "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, are more likely to depend on public transportation and suffer the consequences of living near polluted highways. They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes. Unsure if you're familiar with LA traffic patterns and driving habits, but that really isn't true. Except for living near polluted highways, that's true. If anything, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to commute further.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    > "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people Big fat "citation needed" here. I'm pretty well off, and drive very little, because I can afford to live in a place where I can walk to most of my destinations, and I have an office-type job that lets me work from home (and not drive to an office), as opposed to working somewhere that requires me to be in person, like a service job. At least in the bay area, the "poor people" you are talking about get pushed out of the main population centers, and have to commute longer and longer to get to their jobs. If anything, I would say "poor people" drive much more. But I expect this is also a function of location, and other factors.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
lancesells 5y ago
Electric car or not shouldn't there always be an incentive for extra occupants? Those cars require a huge amount of resources to make and run. Personally, I think even the tax breaks are off. The biggest tax breaks should be from not owning a car at all. The second is probably not buying a new car because you're not using additional resources. Then maybe new electric cars followed with hybrids.
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  > Electric car or not shouldn't there always be an incentive for extra occupants? Those cars require a huge amount of resources to make and run. Personally, I think even the tax breaks are off. The biggest tax breaks should be from not owning a car at all. The second is probably not buying a new car because you're not using additional resources. Then maybe new electric cars followed with hybrids. I responded to a similar comment above, but I'll repeat it here. If we want people to share the same vehicle in those lanes we should probably just close it to everything but buses during rush hour and then actually put more buses on the road.
  - _jn 5y ago
    New bus lanes on 85 were on the table as part of the Policy Advisory Board’s work. Haven’t been able to find any news on what’ll happen with those, unfortunately.
Melatonic 5y ago
I do not think that would work - the charge for the toll is just not enough to really incentivize carpooling on its own. I agree some enforcement could improve things but then again I would guess this still increases carpooling just by the fact that most people do not want to worry about breaking the rules. An interesting enforcement option might be to create a fastrack app or integrate even with Waze / other apps where each person in the car has to confirm they are where they say there are. It wouldnt need to be running a full constant GPS like navigating with turn by turn - just a few GPS pings at the start of your trip to confirm you are all in the same vehicle (or even by a quick local bluetooth ping of each others phones)
- CogitoCogito 5y ago
  > I do not think that would work - the charge for the toll is just not enough to really incentivize carpooling on its own. I guess if I'm honest I think the whole scheme is a silly way of getting people to share vehicles. Really we should probably just take the carpool lanes and make them exclusively usable by buses during rush hour and actually build out that form of transportation.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Buses and trains are far better shared vehicles. If we spent half as much money on better public transit in that corridor as we do adding lanes and building this ridiculous toll system, we might have something functional enough that a lot more people would use it.
  - martinald 5y ago
    Honestly I don't know if that's the answer. Buses on highways tend to either have horrible bus stations in the median, which are often far from where you want to be and are incredibly noisy and riddled with pollution. Or they have to go off the highway which requires either very expensive exclusive off-ramps, otherwise they get stuck behind all the other traffic on the highway which defeats the purpose. I unfortunately think that 101 traffic in the bay area is pretty unsolvable. The main silicon valley area is incredibly low density and virtually unwalkable given the masses of parking lots. I think the best option is to massively increase density next to Caltrain stations (which is starting to happen) and basically move all the development next to the train, rather than trying to build transit to the existing development. Maybe new lines could be built on BART etc to make new corridors, paid for by big taxes from existing "sprawl" office developments far from transit to make them unattractive compared to higher density ones near train service. It's frankly ridiculous that Apple Park was allowed to be built in its current form, for example. It's 3mi from Caltrain, has a ridiculous requirement for parking and is terrible land use wise (though it does look cool). It could have easily been a tower nearer transit, if it wasn't for NIBMYism.
m463 5y ago
I've been pondering carpool lanes and wonder why we have them at all. - they are very unsafe. pretty much danger is proportional to the speed difference between stopped traffic and the carpool lane. - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the first place, why monetize further? - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone - all that new infrastructure to track and charge people costs money, how much overhead is there?
- lkbm 5y ago
  > - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the first place, why monetize further? Monetize further = reduce needed taxes. > - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone This is true iff they don't incentivize carpooling.
- matthewfcarlson 5y ago
  I think carpool lanes are for public transportation. We just don’t have have volume to justify a whole lane so we let in other yahoos. It makes a huge diffidence in Seattle knowing the bus takes an hour and driving by myself would take an hour and a half. However, if I paid 15$ in tolls I could get there in 30 minutes.
  - vgel 5y ago
    > It makes a huge diffidence in Seattle knowing the bus takes an hour and driving by myself would take an hour and a half. Where in Seattle is that true? I used to take the bus all the time before I got a car, but now it's hard to justify since the bus is usually 1.5-2x longer than by car... For example from my apartment to Pike Place Market, Google Maps currently estimates 20 minutes by car and 37 minutes (if you don't miss any transfers!) by bus.
- uoaei 5y ago
  > just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone Adding lanes adds demand, and you get just as much (usually more!) congestion as before.

Handytinge 5y ago

For anyone else not North American, "HOV" stands for "High Occupancy Vehicle".

gridspy 5y ago

Both tolls or the requirement to have an "expensive car" (electric) quickly become discrimination against poor people. Possibly unintentional discrimination. I think it should be simple occupancy based only - vehicles with 3 occupants or more only.

dublinben 5y ago
Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory. Even if it were, the most direct way to address it would be to just give money to people who lack it, or offer a means-tested discount. "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, are more likely to depend on public transportation and suffer the consequences of living near polluted highways. They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory. Would you be saying this if we were talking about high commuter rail fares or park fees that are used as a backhanded way to "class up the place"? Because that's basically what tolls are. >"Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, Not in the context of toll roads. They don't go an extra 5mi to whole foods. They don't take frivolous trips. But none of that is what tolls are trying to solve. Tolls are trying to solve peak commute hour demand. This is a use case where poor people wind up using roads (or any other form of transit) proportionately more than the wealthy because their jobs tend to be less flexible. Yes, they drive proportionately less for cross-town type stuff and a little less for commuting (because you can't justify a long commute for a poorly paid job) but the ones that do drive don't deserve to be the first kicked off the road so a bunch of HNers can drive 5mph faster. >They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes. What? What? Do you seriously believe this? Poor people benefit massively from reduced cost (in time, money and frustration) because their other options are more curtailed so being able to economically justify a trip to Walmart to save 10% over the local option (or whatever) or a different commute to a job that pays marginally more is of larger benefit.
- alpha_squared 5y ago
  > "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people, are more likely to depend on public transportation and suffer the consequences of living near polluted highways. They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like tolling highway lanes. Unsure if you're familiar with LA traffic patterns and driving habits, but that really isn't true. Except for living near polluted highways, that's true. If anything, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to commute further.
- kelnos 5y ago
  > "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people Big fat "citation needed" here. I'm pretty well off, and drive very little, because I can afford to live in a place where I can walk to most of my destinations, and I have an office-type job that lets me work from home (and not drive to an office), as opposed to working somewhere that requires me to be in person, like a service job. At least in the bay area, the "poor people" you are talking about get pushed out of the main population centers, and have to commute longer and longer to get to their jobs. If anything, I would say "poor people" drive much more. But I expect this is also a function of location, and other factors.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

lancesells 5y ago

Electric car or not shouldn't there always be an incentive for extra occupants? Those cars require a huge amount of resources to make and run. Personally, I think even the tax breaks are off. The biggest tax breaks should be from not owning a car at all. The second is probably not buying a new car because you're not using additional resources. Then maybe new electric cars followed with hybrids.

CogitoCogito 5y ago
> Electric car or not shouldn't there always be an incentive for extra occupants? Those cars require a huge amount of resources to make and run. Personally, I think even the tax breaks are off. The biggest tax breaks should be from not owning a car at all. The second is probably not buying a new car because you're not using additional resources. Then maybe new electric cars followed with hybrids. I responded to a similar comment above, but I'll repeat it here. If we want people to share the same vehicle in those lanes we should probably just close it to everything but buses during rush hour and then actually put more buses on the road.
- _jn 5y ago
  New bus lanes on 85 were on the table as part of the Policy Advisory Board’s work. Haven’t been able to find any news on what’ll happen with those, unfortunately.

Melatonic 5y ago

I do not think that would work - the charge for the toll is just not enough to really incentivize carpooling on its own. I agree some enforcement could improve things but then again I would guess this still increases carpooling just by the fact that most people do not want to worry about breaking the rules. An interesting enforcement option might be to create a fastrack app or integrate even with Waze / other apps where each person in the car has to confirm they are where they say there are. It wouldnt need to be running a full constant GPS like navigating with turn by turn - just a few GPS pings at the start of your trip to confirm you are all in the same vehicle (or even by a quick local bluetooth ping of each others phones)

CogitoCogito 5y ago
> I do not think that would work - the charge for the toll is just not enough to really incentivize carpooling on its own. I guess if I'm honest I think the whole scheme is a silly way of getting people to share vehicles. Really we should probably just take the carpool lanes and make them exclusively usable by buses during rush hour and actually build out that form of transportation.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Buses and trains are far better shared vehicles. If we spent half as much money on better public transit in that corridor as we do adding lanes and building this ridiculous toll system, we might have something functional enough that a lot more people would use it.
- martinald 5y ago
  Honestly I don't know if that's the answer. Buses on highways tend to either have horrible bus stations in the median, which are often far from where you want to be and are incredibly noisy and riddled with pollution. Or they have to go off the highway which requires either very expensive exclusive off-ramps, otherwise they get stuck behind all the other traffic on the highway which defeats the purpose. I unfortunately think that 101 traffic in the bay area is pretty unsolvable. The main silicon valley area is incredibly low density and virtually unwalkable given the masses of parking lots. I think the best option is to massively increase density next to Caltrain stations (which is starting to happen) and basically move all the development next to the train, rather than trying to build transit to the existing development. Maybe new lines could be built on BART etc to make new corridors, paid for by big taxes from existing "sprawl" office developments far from transit to make them unattractive compared to higher density ones near train service. It's frankly ridiculous that Apple Park was allowed to be built in its current form, for example. It's 3mi from Caltrain, has a ridiculous requirement for parking and is terrible land use wise (though it does look cool). It could have easily been a tower nearer transit, if it wasn't for NIBMYism.

m463 5y ago

I've been pondering carpool lanes and wonder why we have them at all. - they are very unsafe. pretty much danger is proportional to the speed difference between stopped traffic and the carpool lane. - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the first place, why monetize further? - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone - all that new infrastructure to track and charge people costs money, how much overhead is there?

lkbm 5y ago
> - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the first place, why monetize further? Monetize further = reduce needed taxes. > - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone This is true iff they don't incentivize carpooling.
matthewfcarlson 5y ago
I think carpool lanes are for public transportation. We just don’t have have volume to justify a whole lane so we let in other yahoos. It makes a huge diffidence in Seattle knowing the bus takes an hour and driving by myself would take an hour and a half. However, if I paid 15$ in tolls I could get there in 30 minutes.
- vgel 5y ago
  > It makes a huge diffidence in Seattle knowing the bus takes an hour and driving by myself would take an hour and a half. Where in Seattle is that true? I used to take the bus all the time before I got a car, but now it's hard to justify since the bus is usually 1.5-2x longer than by car... For example from my apartment to Pike Place Market, Google Maps currently estimates 20 minutes by car and 37 minutes (if you don't miss any transfers!) by bus.
uoaei 5y ago
> just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone Adding lanes adds demand, and you get just as much (usually more!) congestion as before.