I live in Los Angeles, and we have some of the worst traffic in the country. I’ve seen that one reason for carpool lanes is to help traffic congestion, but I don’t understand since it seems traffic could be a lot better if we could all use every lane.
Why do we still use carpool lanes? Wouldn’t it drastically help our traffic to open all lanes?
In: 406
Some results from actual studies:
> A 2006 report found that METRO’s HOV lanes (consisting of 113 miles at the time) handled almost 118,000 person trips each weekday, by serving about 36,400 multi-occupant vehicle trips. The report found that the HOV lanes had lower average travel times than adjacent corridors and saved the average commuter 12–22 minutes per trip.
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/health/High-Occupancy-Vehicle-Lanes
> Evidence indicates that the carrying capacity on Onewa Road increased in both the
transit lane and the general traffic lane, while the transit lane patronage on buses
dramatically increased, as did the HOVs’ use of the lane. As such, the transit lane
carried 68 percent of all commuters in 27 percent of all vehicles on Onewa Road
(Murray, 2003).
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/projects/ramp-signals/Priority-Lanes.pdf
[This paper](https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/UT06/UT06019FU1.pdf) has an extended list of successes and problems. Enforcement has historically been one of the bigger problems, but technology is starting to solve that.
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