11/2/2022 0 Comments Katy freeway express lanes![]()
Later this year express lanes will stretch from south of 237 to the San Mateo County line, along with a short stretch on 85 near 101. 85 will have another 2-3 miles, from the 237 intersection up to 101. Later this year you will see an 8-mile stretch from just south of Mathilda to the San Mateo County border. And they reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from our highways.Įxpress lanes are coming to the PeninsulaĮxpress lanes, sometimes called “High Occupancy Toll lanes” or “HOT lanes”, are coming soon to 101 on the Peninsula. Katy freeway express lanes drivers#They provide an express option for drivers that need it. ![]() They raise revenue that can be used to fund alternative transportation. They provide better value for transit and carpools, because the traffic keeps moving. By charging less when lanes are less crowded, the lanes do not stand empty.Įxpress lanes are a step up on HOV lanes. By charging more when lanes are more crowded, lanes can be kept flowing at 45 mph. This is where the dynamic pricing used in express lanes comes in. The 2-person or 3-person limit means they will often be too empty or too full. Better HOV enforcement can help speed up the HOV lanes, offering better reliability for vehicles using those lanes.īut even if there were no cheating, the carpool lanes are not designed to move traffic efficiently. SPUR cites data from the area’s Metropolitan Transportation Committee (MTC) showing that there are many HOV lane violators, an average of 19% of HOV traffic in the morning peak and 25% in the afternoon peak, and up to 39% on some segments. Why is this? Part of the problem is that we have more EVs now, which are allowed in the HOV lanes. Katy freeway express lanes plus#HOV lanes (in blue) throughout the Bay Area, plus a few (tolled) express lanes (in green), as of 2017. In many cases, HOV lanes routinely slow to a near standstill during peak hours.” According to the new SPUR report Freeways of the Future, based on pre-pandemic data, “Of the region’s roughly 450 miles of HOV lanes, more than 50% are ‘very degraded,’ meaning that the average speed is below 45 mph for more than half of the operating hours. Unfortunately, HOV lanes have been slowing down. When they move faster than other lanes they reward people in buses and carpools. (1) So we rolled out HOV lanes (“High Occupancy Vehicle” lanes) to encourage carpooling and transit. We know that adding lanes leads to more people driving, an effect called “induced demand”. Katy freeway express lanes how to#So it’s time to think again about how to reduce the number of vehicles we have on our roads. I would guess most will be at pre-pandemic levels by fall. With the pandemic beginning to fade and businesses opening up, our highways are getting busy once again. SamTrans ridership has been decreasing for years. The pandemic has kept us off of the roads - a plus! - but also off of transit - a minus! Telecommuting will stick around to some degree, but transit was on a downward trend even before the pandemic. Source: Metropolitan Transportation Commission San Mateo County looks similar, but with slightly more transit. The percentage of people in Santa Clara County that commute to work in a single-occupancy vehicle (light orange) hasn’t changed much since 1980 (pre-pandemic). Both San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have had 65%–75% single-occupancy commuters over the last forty years, with little change. We have not been very successful at reducing the number of single-occupancy vehicles. That raises the question: Should it cost more to drive? Transportation is the largest source of emissions in our area and in the state overall, so our pricing should encourage emissions-reducing behavior. ![]() In that same vein, transportation rates are also climate policy. We need to design our rates to encourage behavior that will reduce emissions (i.e., electrification). The Chair of the California Energy Commission, David Hochschild, recently observed that “electricity rates are climate policy”. I love spending time outdoors, and feel deeply our responsibility to this incredible planet that we call home. After working in the tech industry for about 25 years, I retired a few years ago to better align my time with my priorities. I studied math and neurobiology on the east coast before moving out here in 1987 for grad school in computer science. My background is not in climate science, and I'm not even particularly green my hope is that helps to make this blog more relatable. It is important that we develop a shared understanding of the basic science and impacts of climate change, to make sense of our actions and policy options going forward. My hope is that readers of this blog will develop a better understanding of how our climate is evolving and how they want to respond, and will feel comfortable asking questions and exchanging comments on the topic. About this blog: Climate change, despite its outsized impact on the planet, is still an abstract concept to many of us. ![]()
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