Should Hybrid cars be allowed in the carpool lane?
DJ Ksar asked:
I started thinking about this topic today. The point of the carpool lane is to reduce congestion so why are hybrid cars allowed. Also, when the price goes down in hybrid cars (they average $25-$30K) and more people have them will the same carpool rules apply?
Casper
I started thinking about this topic today. The point of the carpool lane is to reduce congestion so why are hybrid cars allowed. Also, when the price goes down in hybrid cars (they average $25-$30K) and more people have them will the same carpool rules apply?
Casper
December 15th, 2008 at 7:42 am
The whole point of the carpool lane thing was to get people to conserve gas. Allowing hybrids in carpool lanes rewards people who buy them. 60mpg is a pretty good #.
P.S. The carpool lanes were created in response to the 1973 “fuel crisis”, as a way to reduce fuel consumption. The secondary benefit being less cars on the road.
December 18th, 2008 at 9:56 am
No. The point of the carpool lane was to carpooling to lower the volume of traffic. Once hybrids become even more popular, you’ll have lost the merit of HOV when it’s saturated with hybrids carrying only one person. Needless to say, few politicians will want to repeal the HOV bonus for fear of being labelled anti-hybrid. It’s politically easy to drag down the benefits on the original beneficiaries of HOV, it’s much harder to completely take those benefits away from the new beneficiaries.
December 18th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
No, I think carpool lanes should only be used to reduce congestion/traffic on the freeway.