Ok, I just lived through a year of construction on I-80 between Sacramento and Rosville, only to find out all the work was for naught - the lane they added is a carpool lane.
I'm a liberal, and I play one on TV, but the idea of carpool lanes just seems stupid to me. Here's why:
- Do they think people honestly say to each other "Oooh! Let's carpool so we can drive in the special lane?"
- Despite using the carpool lane, you still have to slog through the same surface street traffic as everyone else, which just about nullifies any gains of being able to bypass traffic for a short part of the commute. By the same token, it's interesting to watch someone try to get out of the carpool lane into congested traffic; they effectly stop traffic in the carpool lane.
- Driving in the carpool lane invites unwanted attention from law enforcement, eager to cash in the $271 bounty on your head
- Children and infants are accepted as qualifying carpool passengers. Why? The point is to get cars off the road. If you insist on perpetuationg this experiment in social engineering, then make the requirement 2 or more licensed drivers.
- In reality, if people who knew each other well enough to carpool lived close enough that it was convenient, they'd already be doing it, without the addition of a special lane.
I think that nice wide strip of land in the center of the freeway would have been much better used by extending light rail, which terminates less than a mile from where the carpool lanes start.