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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

February 2003

Top 10 Bay Area Carpool Lanes in Terms of Time Saved (2001)
Bay Area commuters who double up or triple up are realizing significant time savings by taking advantage of the region’s 350-mile network of carpool lanes. The amount of time that can be shaved from a given route is a function of several factors, including the length of the segment, the amount of congestion in the neighboring mixed-flow lanes (the more congestion, the slower the travel speed), and the number of cars in the carpool lane itself — if a carpool lane becomes too popular, travel speeds decrease and time savings are reduced.

Not surprisingly, as congestion increased dramatically in the late 1990s, so too did the time savings offered by freeway carpool lanes.

Among the region’s carpoolers, morning commuters heading to Silicon Valley along southbound diamond lanes on I-880 enjoyed the biggest time savings — a whopping 40 minutes.
— Joe Curley

This material was adapted from a new MTC report, Bay Area Transportation: State of the System 2002. See story for more information.


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