OK, freeways around here have carpool lanes on the left. In some cases, on ramps have two lanes with a left hand diamond lane. Fine, I can understand the utility of these, though it’s debateable as to whether they are effective or not. Let’s not have the debate in this thread.
But on some of the local expressways[sup]1[/sup], they insist on having diamond / HOV / carpool lanes, or whatever you want to call them on the right. Not “right turn only” lanes - continous diamond lanes marked for carpools only between certain hours.
Why? It seems to me that this arrangement just creates confusion as solo drivers make right turns onto the thing and find themselves in an illegal lane. Maybe the idea is that it’s REALLY a “right turn only” lane, which they wish to remain empty except for traffic getting on and off the street, and they intend to give a pass to carpools like they do to city busses on the grounds that there won’t be many of them. If so, they are essentially admitting carpools don’t work. If they intend that the lane fill up with carpools, it just creates unneccesary lane changing, as far as I can tell, and loses the advantage of having a comparatively empty lane for turns.
[sup]1[/sup] - an expressway, as the term is used around here, is not a limited access highway. It is a normal street, usually with a dividing median and 3 or 4 lanes in each direction, which is heavily used as a thoroughfair . It still has traffic lights, cross streets, etc, though at a somewhat reduced frequency. The prime examples I’m thinking of are the Lawrence Expressway and the San Thomas Expressway, for those familiar with San Jose and nearby municipalities.
According to the driver’s ed class I took last week, a diamond doesn’t necessarily mean HOV lane. It just means a lane reserved for a specific purpose. So it might be that this is a right turn only lane, and not an HOV lane.
They are explicitly marked as carpool only - in fact, in addition to the diamond lane “carpools only” signs, at some points they have overhead electric displays which show “carpools only” during applicable hours, and “lane ok” off hours. Fine print on the “carpool only” signs says “right turn ok”.
In the Puget Sound area of Washington State, there’s one HOV lane that’s on the right instead of on the left - Highway 520. The rationale that the state gives for that one is because it was converted from a shoulder on an existing road - it was either that or nothing. (And not coincidentally, it’s also the only one in the state that requires at least three people instead of the normal two people.) The lane was originally created to allow busses to pass the tollbooths on the road.
It’s a BUS LANE. Most such lanes are available to carpools as well, but they, like the HOV lanes on freeways, are intended primarily for buses. The idea is to have a lane that is never very full, so that buses can keep their schedules.
Did they finally lose the right hand carpool lane on I-405? That was a boom for the local law enforcement a few years back–maybe this will answer the post: The cops gave a bunch o tickets to folks who got into the CP Lane too soon (when planning to exit the highway) and to folks who took too long to get into the regular lanes (because of gridlock). The cynic in me believes the DOT had a nefarious plan to generate revenue.
As I recall, the right hand lanes WERE bus lanes that allowed the use for 2 (and in some cases, 3) person car pools and motorcycles.
(BTW 520 lost it’s last toll booth on June 22, 1979…before they had the Seattle area had special lanes or a decent baseball team.)
