Caltrans hotly disputes that, but Newton is backed up by the Southern California Association of Governments, which has concluded that the vast investment in carpool lanes has failed to change travelers' behavior. The agency's most recent transportation plan states that building out the system has not resulted in more carpooling as a share of overall traffic. Martin Wachs, a principal transportation researcher at the Rand Corporation, noted that the vast majority of "carpools" are actually members of the same household.
Carpool lanes were all the rage in the transportation world about 25 years ago. Given the slow pace of bureaucracies, they remain a high priority for transportation agencies. Among researchers, however, they have fallen out of favor.
Now the hot topic is toll lanes. With congestion tolls, drivers could choose to sit in traffic or pay $2 or $4 or $10 for a congestion-free ride in the carpool lane.
"If you ask most people who study congestion professionally what we should do, they usually say you need tolls," says Michael Manville, a researcher at UCLA. "For various political reasons, that's not something policy has caught up with."
Charging drivers to use a freeway is a tough sell. But where there is high demand, freeways cannot be both free and free-flowing, researchers argue.
"The roads are scarce. ... If you don't charge for it you're going to get queueing," Manville says. "You see it every morning. For whatever reason politically, we have decided to have Soviet-style freeways."
Despite stiff resistance to the idea, the MTA has taken some tentative steps in the direction of congestion pricing. The agency plans to launch a pilot project on the 110 freeway in the fall of 2012.
Moore, a staunch supporter of congestion pricing, suggests that completing the carpool network through the Sepulveda Pass will help reduce congestion if MTA is planning someday to convert the carpool system to tolls.
But even if it doesn't, Moore argues, that doesn't make the project a waste of money. It will add capacity. That will mean more economic activity — more trips to school, to work, to the dentist. All of that is good. Commuters just shouldn't expect to get there any faster.
"If you're spending money to add capacity to a very congested facility, the benefits have always swamped the costs," Moore says. "The reason people are surprised that there aren't congestion improvements is that we keep telling them there will be. And we should stop."
I just paid $23,98 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $37,59 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $677 which only cost me $72,13 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, CentStart.com
Oil / Gasoline companies block any attempt at making L.A. get subways that connect the city like New York.
Research how the oil companies blocked the Subway expansion in the 50's and 60's. Some say they were also to blame for that explosion that halted the subway construction in the 60's.
Oil / Gasoline companies make a big percentage of their money off Los Angeles.
The thought of toll lanes makes me so angry. How convienent it will be for the wealthy executives and business owners to pay the toll, then get to work early so they can chew out their minimum wage workers for being 2 mins late due to sitting in traffic for 40 mins. Elitist bullshit. Build a metro train railway thru the 405 instead. That's the future. Actually it's old news just ride BART.
i am ready and geared up for carmageddon with my i survived car-mageddon t-shirt
check out all the designs. pretty funny.
"But amid the doomsaying, there has been almost no skepticism about the underlying wisdom of the project, which will add a northbound carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass in 2013."
Yeah, how about in the middle of Carmageddon we hold some hearings to decide if we really want to complete this project.
Good grief!
Dude .... you're quoting a guy named Doug Failing, about how the highway's grades are going to end up failing .... the dude's just a self-promoter, obviously. It's his namesake for goodness sake!
but to use the carpool lane, one would have to have a second passanger. look around you next time you're on the freeway....majority of cars have only one person in them. the carpool lane is for a culture we angelenos don't have and can't have because the vast majority of us live 40min+ from work.
Go to any other big city and you'll see people driving too. Everyone acts as if we in Los Angeles are the only ones in the world with cars, freeways and busy boulevards.
True, everyone does make it seem like that. But after having lived in three other cities before moving to L.A. I do think that if public transportation were improved perhaps it could cut down a bit on the congestion, but who knows.
25 years ago (and still) carpool lanes were the fad. Failure. Now the fad is toll lanes. What evidence is there that this will not be a failure too?
"They all assume that adding capacity is not going to add demand... more trips to school, to work, to the dentist."
Yeah... Thank God for the new lane on the freeway! Now I can finally get my teeth fixed!
How f*cking stupid can you people possibly be?
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