HOT Lanes may have hot future in Bay Area

[mightyace]

Tolling to be huge in SF Bay Area with 1300km (800 miles) network committed

Apparently, most of the HOV lanes in the region are to be converted and some may already be in the process of conversion.

As always, commentary is welcome from those who live in/pass by the region for what's really happening.  (That's you voyager!)

[mrivera1]

HOT lanes can really help during traffic at peak times.  Down here in SD, I live on the I-15 corridor, and it has never been easier to get anywhere since the lanes were put in.  Although, I've always liked the concept of enter/exit as you please carpool lanes.  It really becomes a hassle when you need to exit the freeway.  I enjoyed them during my trip up the 101 to San Francisco a few weeks back.  I wish there could be some sort of compromise, even though I know people would exit just to avoid the toll, but tolls have never really been popular out west anyway. 

[Voyager]

Are you kidding me?

[mrivera1]

You have no idea how many times somebody has decided to slow down in the carpool lane while the mainline is moving at full speed.  Myself, as well as many people I know have simply broken the law and crossed the double yellow just to get ahead.  It can get really stressful when you are trying to get somewhere before a certain time.  Either they allow free-flowing entrance and exit in the carpool lane, or they establish a minimum speed limit in the carpool lane.  There are people that think the carpool lane is a place to cruise and it is not.   Now, low tolls are ok, but extremely high tolls, as they will be getting to soon on the South Bay Expressway (which isn't used as much as predicted), are just too unreasonable to be worth it.  Not only that, the amount of toll roads in California isn't anywhere near the amount of toll roads on the East Coast, where there are toll roads that are very long.  Based on that alone, it can be said the concept hasn't really caught on as much.  HOT lanes and toll roads are great ideas that can work in California, but the prices shouldn't be allowed to skyrocket as they have with some private operators.   

[Voyager]

This is going to make the traffic even worse. Nobody in the Bay Area is going to use these.

[corco]

This is going to make the traffic even worse. Nobody in the Bay Area is going to use these.

You'd be surprised. That's what I thought when they put those things on SR 167 in the Seattle area. As long as the road is free for HOV there will still be just as many cars in those lanes as there were before, and then any extra lane-miles in the HOV lanes can be filled by tolled solo drivers, so from that standpoint it's a no loss. That said, I'm highly against those for other reasons.

I actually wrote an essay about them for class earlier this year

http://www.davidjcorcoran.com/classnotes/hotlanes.pdf

[mrivera1]

The reality of it is, no matter what you do to the freeway system, in many cases, the number of people that use the freeway outnumber anything that would be of use for traffic easement.  Sprawl is the most amazing thing, no?   

[Voyager]

I still don't want them.

[mapman]

Well, get ready for them, voyager.  I saw in today's San Jose Mercury News (Mr. Roadshow column) that Caltrans is now preparing for the conversion of the southbound I-680 HOV lane into a toll lane.  Supposedly, all of the southbound lanes have been narrowed to 11 feet and the speed limit has been lowered to 55 MPH.