Due to a contract I've been driving a pleasure-filled 100 miles per day on the lovely 405 freeway for a number of weeks. I'm not in a hurry, so I chill and kind of watch traffic like I'm not there.
What I see ever day is, well, ridiculous.
The carpool lane is a complete waste. It effectively removes 20% to 25% of the road's capacity without any real benefits at all. Why?
- Cars with multiple passengers were going to have
multiple passengers, carpool lane or not
- Those cars were not removed from the road thanks to the
carpool lane: No benefit
- Business trucks with multiple passengers? Same issue:
They were going to have multiple passengers anyway
- Buses: They go slow and plug-up the carpool lane
and actually create traffic jams. Today I watched an
empty bus with probably 50 cars behind it going well
below the speed limit. Crazy.
- Cargo trucks (like 24 footers). Again, same problems:
They were going to have multiple passengers anyway,
they are going slow and cause congestion.
- Tons of cars with a single person break the rules and
use the carpool lane because nothing is enforced,
particularly at night
Their mission should be to make the roadways as efficient as possible.
Don't pull over the guy doing 80 in the fast lane who is getting the hell out of the way. Pull over the dude doing 50 in the middle of the freeway and the nutcase one lane over doing 49.999 miles per hour who form a virtual "cork" in the road and create a pile-up behind them.
And all those people who somehow can't press on the accelerator going uphill? We must do something about them. It's unbelievable.
How about the guy doing 63.9 mph on the left lane who absolutely refuses to move over, creates a pile-up and has an asshole behind him driving one foot from his bumper?
Ah, and one of my favorites: Let's get on the freeway at 40 miles per hour because we are afraid of the accelerator or we just don't give a shit! Cars pile up, swerve around and a huge potential for a nasty accident is created when these fine folk enter our freeways.
Yes, we do have too many cars on the road, but they are also being driven in really stupid and inefficient ways, our agencies do exactly zero to improve the situation and, on top of that, lanes are taken away and road capacity is reduced for this imaginary idea of carpooling.
I really don't think our highways are being used anywhere near peak efficiency. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the exact opposite were true.