HOT not HOV

This article describes how tweaking old-fashioned busy lanes could smooth traffic flow. Congestion on busy roads is not going anywhere; it will be around for a long time to come. But one measure used to combat congestion and also to fight back against high gas prices is carpooling. So do carpool lanes still make traffic management sense and, for that matter, economic sense today? Perhaps high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes should become high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, essentially giving cars with, say, three or more people a free ride by tolling vehicles in those lanes with only one or two people in them. A 2009 Census Bureau survey shows that carpooling peaked way back in 1980. That year, carpool rates were calculated at almost 19.7%. By 1990 it was 13.4% and, in 2000, it was 12.2%. By 2009, it was just 10%. A rate for Hispanics boosted, according to the Census, by new immigrants sharing rides to jobs, was at 19% in 2009, but it had been 28% in 2000. This fall in carpooling has confounded efforts by urban planners. This article describes how this decline in carpooling has two opposing trends. On the one hand, departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) were doing everything they could think of to encourage carpools. While freeway expansion slowed dramatically during the past three decades, when new lanes did get added, they were mostly carpool lanes. But during this same three decades, two-earner households became the dominant trend, and those jobs were typically in two different suburban directions. Car ownership grew twice as fast as population during this period – population up by about a third, car ownership up by nearly 60%. And the ongoing suburbanization of jobs has made arranging and sustaining carpools increasingly problematic.

• Record URL:
  http://www.betterroads.com/financial-district-12/
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/1519687
• Authors:
  • Latta, John
• Publication Date: 2011-4

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Photos;
• Pagination: pp 43-45, 47
• Serial:
  • Better Roads
  • Volume: 81
  • Issue Number: 4
  • Publisher: James Informational Media, Incorporated
  • ISSN: 0006-0208
  • Serial URL: http://www.betterroads.com

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Carpools; High occupancy toll lanes; High occupancy vehicle lanes; Hispanics; Metropolitan planning organizations; Ridesharing; State departments of transportation; Traffic congestion; Traffic flow; Trend (Statistics)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01340003
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 18 2011 10:51AM