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HOV vs HOT lanes

Started by skluth, January 25, 2023, 06:14:31 PM

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skluth

I'm curious as to others opinions regarding HOT lanes vs HOV lanes. When I first heard about HOT lanes, they were derided as "Lexus lanes" and a lot of people were against them as a special privilege for those willing (and able) to pay. However, I've noticed in So Cal that many in the HOV lanes routinely have only one person in the vehicle; I rarely noticed this when I lived on the East Coast and didn't notice any violators during my recent visit to Las Vegas. I've also noticed the HOT lanes on I-15 and CA 91 are mostly single-occupied and people willingly pay for the use. So I've changed my attitude from anti- to pro-HOT lanes. How do others feel about this?

I apologize if this has been discussed before but I didn't find a discussion in my search. Though I think if I did, it would have been a while and a new discussion may be worthwhile as others may have also changed their opinion.


Scott5114

For me it kind of boils down to what the purpose of the lanes is. The concept of HOV lanes is that by restricting them to 2+, you're increasing the throughput of number of humans through that one lane. You're also giving people an incentive to share vehicles, which has both throughput and environmental benefits.

It seems to me like HOT lanes basically undermine both of the goals of the HOV lane. It also opens up a means for people with disposable income to gain an advantage in life, which is very clearly a revolutionary idea nobody has ever thought of or tried before anywhere in human existence.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

jeffandnicole

HOV lanes have become abused because the only real way to catch violators is to pull them over.  Cops don't really like pulling people over on busy roadways, especially at rush hour.  And the shoulder area to pull HOV violators is quite limited.  Even if there's a half-dozen cops out there waiting to pull a HOV violator over, there's a hundred people illegally using the lane so odds are still on the violator's side they won't be stopped.

HOT lanes generally have fewer abusers, although no one other than those watching the cameras at the tolling points can tell if motorists are using the transponder in HOV (free travel) mode or being honest.

oscar

#3
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2023, 09:18:26 PM
It also opens up a means for people with disposable income to gain an advantage in life, which is very clearly a revolutionary idea nobody has ever thought of or tried before anywhere in human existence.

But it does generate revenue to support the construction and operation of the lanes, indirectly benefiting carpoolers who might not by themselves justify construction of HOV lanes. Toll revenues also can be used to subsidize transit, which was part of the sales pitch to persuade Arlington County VA (long hostile to construction and expansion of I-66 through the county) to go along with making I-66 inside the Beltway a HOT freeway during rush hours.

And allowing some drivers who wouldn't qualify for free HOV rides to use the lanes, would make more efficient use of HOT lane capacity.

The DC metro area has a wide variety of HOV/HOT policies, with a mix of lanes reserved entirely for free HOV traffic, and ones allowing toll users to soak up lane capacity that would otherwise go to waste.
my Hot Springs and Highways pages, with links to my roads sites:
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Rothman

I'm against them both.  Either you're reducing the use of the road's capacity through occupancy or price -- HOTs are indeed Lexus Lanes -- see also the richer rich paying to get around TSA security theater.  Just seems silly to do so given the demand.

That also said, I am all for changing the way we fund our transportation infrastructure and a more holistic view of roads and transit, but I find HOVs and HOTs very narrow-minded.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

Scott5114

Quote from: oscar on January 25, 2023, 10:18:17 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on January 25, 2023, 09:18:26 PM
It also opens up a means for people with disposable income to gain an advantage in life, which is very clearly a revolutionary idea nobody has ever thought of or tried before anywhere in human existence.

But it does generate revenue to support the construction and operation of the lanes, indirectly benefiting carpoolers who might not by themselves justify construction of HOV lanes. Toll revenues also can be used to subsidize transit, which was part of the sales pitch to persuade Arlington County VA (long hostile to construction and expansion of I-66 through the county) to go along with making I-66 inside the Beltway a HOT freeway during rush hours.

This is true, of course, but my personal belief is that a better way of doing that would be to adjust tax policy. But I understand not everyone agrees with that.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

1995hoo

First, as a general principle I have no objection to whatever restriction the authorities deem appropriate being placed on lanes that represent completely new construction where the same number of general-purpose lanes that existed before continue to exist. So, for example, in Virginia when part of the Beltway received four new lanes (two in each direction), those new lanes carried an HO/T restriction from the beginning, and at least four general-purpose lanes continued to serve each direction (with an additional lane added in one location), I saw no problem at all other than the nuisance of construction. General-purpose traffic had the same capacity, slightly augmented, that it had previously. Earlier this month, I was riding with my brother-in-law on I-75 in Broward County, Florida, and he was complaining about the express toll lanes there (they're not HO/T lanes because they don't have the "free HOV" feature); he complained that "it should be illegal to put a toll on a road paid for by tax dollars," but he had no response to the point that they were totally new lanes that didn't exist before, new construction in the former median. Most rational people will agree that if they build a totally new road, it's OK to put a toll on it (though some people won't like the toll and may use another road*), so I don't see any principled reason why a totally new set of lanes shouldn't be the same.

Second, I think some people–and I don't necessarily mean anyone on this forum–misunderstand the purpose of HOV lanes. HOV lanes are not intended to maximize the number of vehicles moved per hour. They're intended to maximize the number of people moved per hour even though that may mean moving fewer vehicles. (There was a letter to the editor in the Washington Post a few weeks ago complaining that HOV lanes don't move as many "vehicles" as general-purpose lanes. I didn't have time to write a response.) The now-retired Dr. Gridlock at the Post, Robert Thomson, once commented that it's understandable why some people complain when they see a free-flowing HOV lane next to stopped traffic in the general-purpose lanes: He said we're so conditioned to congestion and traffic jams that we think that any lane that's flowing reasonably well is "underutilized," even if it's carrying more people per hour than the general-purpose lanes.

Third, also as a general matter I don't have a huge objection to HO/T lanes if the tolling works well because I view them as a form of capitalism in action. The fact of the HOV lanes carrying more people in fewer cars has, as a side effect, that there is usually some amount of excess capacity in those lanes. As Oscar notes (not quite in these words), HO/T lanes essentially sell that excess capacity to people who are willing to pay or who have a need to get somewhere quickly (the example of the latter often cited by HO/T lane advocates is a parent who has to pick up a child at daycare by a certain time or else pay a late fee that may outweigh the cost of the toll). Of course, the trick is how to manage the tolling to ensure that the HO/T lanes don't attract too many vehicles. My unscientific experience suggests that Transurban in Virginia generally does a good job of that on the Beltway–I've been in the HO/T lanes going 70 mph when the general-purpose lanes were at a complete standstill. The toll was high ($20 for the eight miles from I-66 to Springfield), but I was going 70 mph and saved at least half an hour stuck in stopped traffic. The thing about which some people complain is when, as in Virginia, there is no cap on the potential toll rates. It leads to sensationalist news stories about high tolls. Problem is, if you put an artificial cap on the toll rates, you potentially hamstring the ability to keep the lanes free-flowing because the whole point of the tolls is to control the amount of traffic by weeding out, as it were, people who are only willing to pay up to a specific amount.

*We have a family friend who lives not far from the Dulles Toll Road. At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, her late husband was exceedingly frugal; to call him a "miser" might be an understatement. My mother and father went with her to the hospital to visit her husband shortly before he died a few years ago and they used the Dulles Toll Road to take her home. She was astounded at how fast it was–she had never been on that road before, even though it's been open since 1984 (they lived in Reston since the 1970s). Her late husband absolutely refused to pay the toll under any circumstances and prohibited her from using it. She still lives in the same location and I don't think she's been on the Dulles Toll Road since then, although she's ridden the Metro Silver Line.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

Dirt Roads

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2023, 08:22:41 AM
Second, I think some people–and I don't necessarily mean anyone on this forum–misunderstand the purpose of HOV lanes. HOV lanes are not intended to maximize the number of vehicles moved per hour. They're intended to maximize the number of people moved per hour even though that may mean moving fewer vehicles.

Actually, if we are strict about the definition, the main purpose of HOV lanes is to mitigate the calculated environmental impact of constructing an additional lane.  Which has a perhaps intended consequence of creating an underutilized lane (ergo, free-flowing).  If I understand the process correctly (and I probably don't), a particular DOT could go back to the FHWA a certain time after creating an HOV-only lane and request Federal funds to remove the HOV restrictions (as another means of mitigating the calculated environmental impact of constructing another additional lane) or simply pay for the HOV-removal with non-Federal funds.  We play this game occasionally on the FTA (Federal Transit Administration) side of things.

6a

I know this isn't the same thing, but in practice it basically serves the same purpose. After sitting for an eternity on 401 through Toronto, I gladly paid the $13 CAD (or whatever it was) to take 407 on the return trip. I practically had the road to myself the entire time.

Bitmapped

To me, it depends on the utilization level of the HOV lanes. If there is excess capacity that you can add additional tolled vehicles to the HOV lanes without degrading their level of service, I'm OK with it. Getting vehicles out of the free lanes still improves the experience there for people who can't afford to pay the extra tolls.

If adding people to the HOV lanes would result in a worse level of service, then no, I'm against converting to HOT unless the tolling on its own funds upgrades to mitigate the impact of the extra traffic.

1995hoo

Quote from: Dirt Roads on January 26, 2023, 09:52:33 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2023, 08:22:41 AM
Second, I think some people–and I don't necessarily mean anyone on this forum–misunderstand the purpose of HOV lanes. HOV lanes are not intended to maximize the number of vehicles moved per hour. They're intended to maximize the number of people moved per hour even though that may mean moving fewer vehicles.

Actually, if we are strict about the definition, the main purpose of HOV lanes is to mitigate the calculated environmental impact of constructing an additional lane.  Which has a perhaps intended consequence of creating an underutilized lane (ergo, free-flowing).  If I understand the process correctly (and I probably don't), a particular DOT could go back to the FHWA a certain time after creating an HOV-only lane and request Federal funds to remove the HOV restrictions (as another means of mitigating the calculated environmental impact of constructing another additional lane) or simply pay for the HOV-removal with non-Federal funds.  We play this game occasionally on the FTA (Federal Transit Administration) side of things.

I don't necessarily think that's always the case because some HOV lanes probably pre-date a lot of the environmental statutes and regulations in place now. I'm primarily thinking of the original segment of reversible roadway on Shirley Highway in Virginia, which was originally HOV-4 at all times when it opened to non-transit users in the 1970s. I say "original segment" to denote that it originally ran from the 14th Street Bridge to a point just south of where the Franconia—Springfield Parkway is now; it's been extended south of there a couple of times over the ensuing 50 years.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

pderocco

When HOV lanes were brand new, the argument was always made that they created an incentive for people to "car pool", which would result in fewer cars carrying the same number of people, reducing total traffic and reducing jams. I never bought this. I think that very few cars that have two or more occupants are actually "car pooling", if that is correctly defined as people who make special arrangements to find people to share rides with in order to avoid the extra expense of driving themselves. There are even fewer if you limit the definition to people who do it so that they can use HOV lanes. Most are people who would be riding together anyway, usually friends or families. In one of my first jobs at age 19, I car pooled with people (not on freeways) because we were all broke, but never have since. Yet I sometimes find myself going places with other people. We're not "car pooling" though.

If my observation is right, then HOV lanes actually reduce the efficiency of roads. If you have, say, three regular lanes in one direction that carry 30 cars per minute without bogging. If you redefine the left lane as HOV, it usually isn't the case that 33% of the cars already have two or more people in them, and can simply take over that lane. If that were the case, you wouldn't notice any difference in the traffic flow. The fact that the HOV lane is usually emptier demonstrates that.

The only way the HOV lane can be emptier, without the others being fuller than they used to be, is if a sufficient number of extra people decide, as a result of the availability of the HOV lane, to start car pooling. If they don't, that is likely to make overall traffic worse, because traffic is very threshold-y, meaning that there is a density above which the traffic suddenly bogs. If pushing half of the cars out of the left lane into the other two tips those lanes over that threshold, then those three lanes will suddenly have a traffic jam in them, and the overall flow rate will be lower.

That's what I think is going on. I don't believe for a minute that the availability of HOV lanes can incentivize enough car pooling to keep the traffic counts in the other lanes from increasing, even if there are four or five lanes. Six, maybe, but how many roads are that big? (And six lane carriageways usually get two lanes stolen for HOV use.)

I'd like to see an experiment on some heavily traveled urban road that has HOV lanes: try opening them up to everyone over a sufficiently long period, and see what the traffic counts look like.

jgb191

I always favored a different method of segregating traffic.  Divide the traffic in each direction:  The inner three lanes would be express traffic bypassing all of the local exits, only interchanging with the freeways that intersect, and the outer four lanes would be local traffic with access to each of the local exits.  If someone were to drive from a city's downtown nonstop to a distant suburb, then that driver would take the express lanes uninterrupted and then switch to a local lane when his/her exit is coming up.  No tolls required.
We're so far south that we're not even considered "The South"

Dirt Roads

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 26, 2023, 08:22:41 AM
Second, I think some people–and I don't necessarily mean anyone on this forum–misunderstand the purpose of HOV lanes. HOV lanes are not intended to maximize the number of vehicles moved per hour. They're intended to maximize the number of people moved per hour even though that may mean moving fewer vehicles.

Quote from: Dirt Roads on January 26, 2023, 09:52:33 AM
Actually, if we are strict about the definition, the main purpose of HOV lanes is to mitigate the calculated environmental impact of constructing an additional lane.  Which has a perhaps intended consequence of creating an underutilized lane (ergo, free-flowing).  If I understand the process correctly (and I probably don't), a particular DOT could go back to the FHWA a certain time after creating an HOV-only lane and request Federal funds to remove the HOV restrictions (as another means of mitigating the calculated environmental impact of constructing another additional lane) or simply pay for the HOV-removal with non-Federal funds.  We play this game occasionally on the FTA (Federal Transit Administration) side of things.

Quote from: 1995hoo on January 27, 2023, 08:23:50 AM
I don't necessarily think that's always the case because some HOV lanes probably pre-date a lot of the environmental statutes and regulations in place now. I'm primarily thinking of the original segment of reversible roadway on Shirley Highway in Virginia, which was originally HOV-4 at all times when it opened to non-transit users in the 1970s. I say "original segment" to denote that it originally ran from the 14th Street Bridge to a point just south of where the Franconia—Springfield Parkway is now; it's been extended south of there a couple of times over the ensuing 50 years.

You bring up an interesting point here (since I've been thinking in the current-day context of whether a particular DOT should add HOV lanes to an existing freeway, versus a PPP solution using HOT lanes).  Back when the Shirley Highway (originally VA-350) was being reconstructed in late 1960s, one of my old contacts at the (then) Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA) was tasked on a project to add a transit system to the corridor.  The Shirley corridor had not been recommended by the National Capital Transportation Agency (later WMATA) in their original long-term plans.  Instead, the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission got tasked with planning for this transit corridor and recommended an Express Bus corridor.  By the time construction began on the Shirley Reversible in 1969, it was pretty obvious that both UMTA and NVTC were convinced that the one-lane reversible express bus corridor was going to replaced soon after completion with a two-lane reversible HOV corridor. 

VA-350 became I-95 in 1965 and the (then) Virginia Department of Highways began the process of reconstruction to Interstate standards, which took 11 years to complete.  The final stages of this reconstruction were along the same exact timelines of the Shirley Reversible Express Bus corridor, leaving me to believe that the intention of [what UMTA described as a "demonstration project"] was actually intended to be a "temporary relief valve" for the various bus services in the corridor.  Thus, the leftover reversible corridor could then be reconstructed with an additional lane and [reused] as HOV lanes for additional highway capacity.

/rant/ Nowadays, the Shirley Reversible Express Bus corridor is being touted as one of the early applications of Bus Rapid Transit in the United States.  Indeed, the fellow at (then) UMTA even wrote that this demonstration project was intended to evaluate whether BRT would be successful in the corridor.  That statement has misled the entire industry to assume that complex Express Bus systems are the same critter as Bus Rapid Transit.  Simple but dedicated express bus lanes do not satisfy the original requirements of BRT (as typified by the system in Curituba, Brazil). /end/rant/

My overall impression here is that the Shirley HOV lanes were an unintended outcome of a temporary phasing strategy for a huge construction project.  But it did give transportation engineers a new strategy to utilize in trying to meet strict environmental impact rules related to constructing additional lanes on an existing freeway.  And the corollary is that HOT lanes are a means of adding additional capacity to HOV lanes, but perhaps requiring a demand-based tolling strategy to limit capacity to the [pre-determined] maximum usage that is intended to maintain the entire [transportation facility] beneath the allowable emissions limits.  I'm not trying to pass judgment here, just seeing things from the viewpoint of a transportation planner toolkit.



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