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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE

February 2003

MTC Takes a Fresh Look
At Carpool Lanes

HOV laneOfficially, they’re known as high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes. In the vernacular, they’re also referred to as diamond lanes, carpool lanes and commute lanes. Whatever you call them, these ribbons of highway dedicated to multi-occupant vehicles have not only expanded our vocabulary, they’ve become a critical part of the Bay Area transportation system. In fact, the region’s carpool-lane network has grown more than five-fold since 1990. To help ensure the network achieves its dual goal of relieving congestion and reducing emissions, MTC is updating its master plan for Bay Area carpool lanes.

HOV Lanes:
Love Them or Hate Them
Carpool lanes arouse strong feelings — both positive and negative — among motorists, as demonstrated by a recent MTC survey conducted via the Web. While one-third of survey respondents strongly oppose carpool lanes on Bay Area freeways, 57 percent support carpool lanes — and the figure rises to 90 percent among those who actually use the lanes at least two or three times a week. So the verdict is clear: When it comes to carpool lanes, to use them is to love them.

Reflecting input from more than 5,000 respondents to an online survey conducted this winter, the Draft 2002 HOV Lane Master Plan Update calls for considering opening Interstate 80 carpool lanes to mixed-flow traffic headed in the off-peak direction during morning and evening commute periods; im- proving enforcement of carpool-lane requirements; and expanding express bus services so the HOV lanes carry more people.

Planners found that many of the Bay Area’s HOV lanes will fill to capacity between 2010 and 2025. Strategies for dealing with the crush at that time might include further increases in express bus service and stricter HOV-lane enforcement, more metering lights and HOV-lane bypasses at freeway on-ramps, or raising carpool occupancy requirements from two to three or more occupants (the level currently in effect along the I-80 corridor).

Beyond such operational adjustments, the Draft HOV Master Plan Update recommends a multitiered investment program that would add as many as 387 new miles of carpool lanes around the region by 2025; construct freeway-to-freeway carpool-lane connectors; build new ramps to provide direct access to and from carpool lanes; add several major express bus stations to freeway medians; and build more than a dozen other express bus/ park-and-ride stations around the Bay Area. More than half the funding for these projects already has been committed.
— John Goodwin


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