Eli5 How are carpool lanes supposed to help traffic? It seems like having another lane open to everyone would make things better?

851 views

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

72 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is made as an incentive to people who carpool. So they can get faster to where they need to be, which motivates them to carpool.

If all people carpooled, then you would reduce the number of cars on roads by 50% or more.

No traffic jams, yay!

Anonymous 0 Comments

This is made as an incentive to people who carpool. So they can get faster to where they need to be, which motivates them to carpool.

If all people carpooled, then you would reduce the number of cars on roads by 50% or more.

No traffic jams, yay!

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you take the cars with the highest density of people and let them move the fastest, it increases the throughput of the system.

The goal is to move people, not cars.

Anonymous 0 Comments

If you take the cars with the highest density of people and let them move the fastest, it increases the throughput of the system.

The goal is to move people, not cars.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pretty simple concept. If people are carpooling there are les cars on the road so having a dedicated lane as a reward makes it incentivize.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Pretty simple concept. If people are carpooling there are les cars on the road so having a dedicated lane as a reward makes it incentivize.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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.

Anonymous 0 Comments

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.