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Express lanes are making bank

Since I moved north, I certainly don't miss the current traffic issues in the Bay Area. It used to be manageable but now it's getting similar to LA

Mad
 
I guess my old trick for a trip to the City, isn't much anymore.
I took the bridges in the free direction, Bay in, Gate out.
It has been a few years, I have crossed the newish Bay Bridge once, for the Lane Sharing Party.
This was a twofer, Barf/City Bike, and the Navy was in town.
 
wait which of the express lanes were converted from 'general traffic' lanes? i thought they were all additional capacity. not removing lanes.

in other words, they make the general lanes faster by encouraging carpools (3 people = 1-2 fewer cars, let alone 45+ people in a bus vs 45 cars) and taking a bit of 'lexus' traffic out of the general lanes. oh and motos too.

different story if they converted lanes to toll--those could still be increasing the road capacity by encouraging carpools but sure look to be 'unfair'. and in fact in some places fewer lanes *is* faster because fewer lane changes = less chaos.
 
Don't forget the gas tax and vehicle registrations that pay for road maintenance as well. So it's not like the taxpayers aren't paying our share to use the roads.
 
mbsv said:
wait which of the express lanes were converted from 'general traffic' lanes? i thought they were all additional capacity. not removing lanes.
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237 for sure. I believe there are others as well, but those facts are not so fun to search out.
 
tzrider said:
The toll lanes are bad enough but this makes my blood boil. They seem to think it will reduce congestion on the freeways but meanwhile more companies are enforcing return to office mandates. It would be good to get everyone on the same page if reducing traffic is the goal.
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It's not the goal. Neither is vehicle emissions, evidenced by the appropriation of an entire lane for state income efforts. The goal is to shore up the state budget. CA's bankrupt (again). This time, for reals tho. Every plan for increased revenue is a short term, 1 shot deal. That's how we know it's parlor trick revenue; regressive taxes with no shame. One of the more dog head cocking things about the pay/ play lanes are the cars I always see in them: many low value, older vehicles in the pay lane. It's weird. I can't help but hope the license plates on them don't belong to those cars...

budman said:
Then one would have to ask….,

Where do the dollars go??
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Into CA budget purgatory, where else? We're out of money...and by "we", I mean anyone who pays into the state and federal tax system. When you spend too much on Saturday night top shelf booger sugar, strippers and bad bets, you've gotta shove the furniture into the driveway for an "estate sale" on Sunday. These pays lanes are just one piece of CA's estate sale...
 
Holeshot said:
It's not the goal. Neither is vehicle emissions, evidenced by the appropriation of an entire lane for state income efforts. The goal is to shore up the state budget. CA's bankrupt (again). This time, for reals tho. Every plan for increased revenue is a short term, 1 shot deal. That's how we know it's parlor trick revenue; regressive taxes with no shame. One of the more dog head cocking things about the pay/ play lanes are the cars I always see in them: many low value, older vehicles in the pay lane. It's weird. I can't help but hope the license plates on them don't belong to those cars...



Into CA budget purgatory, where else? We're out of money...and by "we", I mean anyone who pays into the state and federal tax system. When you spend too much on Saturday night top shelf booger sugar, strippers and bad bets, you've gotta shove the furniture into the driveway for an "estate sale" on Sunday. These pays lanes are just one piece of CA's estate sale...
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I was going to reply that it’s simply another tax.
For the record I no longer do the sugar or bet even though it’s why my state doesn’t have an income tax.
 
Climber said:
Perhaps if you examine caltrans salaries on the same graph as revenues from the express lanes....
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Perhaps if you had read the original post you'd have realized that Caltrans does not, generally, operate or get any revenue from the express lanes.

But, if you compare the salaries of the MTC executive director and the director of Caltrans you'll see that one of them makes almost twice as much as the other.
 

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budman said:
The express lanes are not super well used and pushes lots of vehicles into the mixed flow lanes. That sucks.

Your thoughts on these... do you pay to play??
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The theory behind express lanes is they take unused capacity in a carpool lane and make it available to people who are willing to pay to use it. This takes some traffic out of the mixed-flow lanes, theoretically allowing them to operate with less delay. I'm pretty sure 101 on the peninsula, 680 in Alameda County and 580 headed towards the Altamont pass would not have been widened without local money and the prospect of express lane revenue to supplement those funds.

The San Mateo County express lanes are run by a local Joint Powers Authority, the 580 and 680 express lanes in Alameda County are run by the Alameda CTC, and the MTC operates other express lanes.
 
cal scott said:
It would be interesting to understand whether the new lanes have increased or decreased carpooling, the original purpose of the lanes. Of course, a cynic would argue that is no longer their purpose ;-).
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Why would they be purposed To increase carpooling? I don't even see that purpose linked in the article.

I think They're purposed to decrease congestion --and make people think about their driving habits and distances--IMO.

They may also be purposed to fund mass transit or building more, and closer to your destination
 
Part of the reducing congestion was intended to be getting people into carpools. I’m not sure it’s worked out that way to a large extent.
 
Oh suuuuure. They make money hand over fist with the pay the play lanes on highways. But some jerkoff state politician want to kick CLEAR out of the airports because the haves and have nots environment it creates causes frustration and friction at the airports. Ok. Cool.
 
.... and I thought this was going to be a discussion on 'express lanes' at Wally mart...
DT
 
Did you know Walmart now offers dental services?

They have an express lane for patients with 12 teeth or less.
 
tzrider said:
Did you know Walmart now offers dental services?

They have an express lane for patients with 12 teeth or less.
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I was gonna say something serious but…
 
IMO toll roads seem to create the right incentives? There is an ever expanding crush of people moving to the central valley and clogging our freeway system on their mega commutes. Those of us living in the closer bay area, are effectively punished for their middle-of-nowhere suburban tract home, boat and 3 car garage lifestyle. If you can't afford to live the suburban lifestyle reasonably close to where you work, you're supposed to live in multi-family housing.
 
Back of envelope calculation reveals that if I used the few miles of extortion lanes on my commute, I'd pay roughly 5 grand a year.

They comprise ~12% of my commute miles, and typically ~40% of my commute time when not used.
 
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