Put the Brakes on Carpool Plan

A proposal to let cars with three people ride for free on a proposed Riverside Freeway carpool lane through part of Orange County but to charge cars with one or two people deserves to be stalled.

Carpool lanes have been in existence in Southern California for nearly 25 years, but not all freeways have them along their entire length yet. Where they exist, most special lanes are open to cars with two or more people. It’s the rare freeway that requires three people. And it will be the extremely annoying road that charges drivers depending on what time it is.

Besides its often-clogged free lanes, the Riverside (91) Freeway has 10 miles of privately operated express lanes running from the Riverside County line to the northern tip of the Costa Mesa Freeway. Those 10 miles have a potpourri of financial plans, depending on how many are in the car and at what time.

This month the Orange County Transportation Authority unfortunately was given the green light by its board to consider extending the express lane concept to the stretch of the Riverside Freeway that runs from the Costa Mesa Freeway to the Los Angeles County line. The carpool lane would be free to cars with three or more people, but available to cars with one or two people upon payment of anywhere from $1 to $5, depending on time of day.

The OCTA would not add lanes to the freeway that are not already planned. It would operate the single carpool lane now under construction and due to be finished by the year 2000 on the pay-as-you-go plan. That undercuts the purpose of the carpool lane. It was supposed to encourage people to ride together, with benefits including reducing air pollution and excess gasoline use.

OCTA officials said they were concerned that a carpool lane for two or more would become too crowded. But they said too few cars would use the lane if the requirement were three people or more. Thus the confusing proposal to charge drivers in an effort to get enough drivers, but not too many, to use the lane.

It is disappointing that only one director, Supervisor Todd Spitzer, objected to the OCTA’s doing more study of the proposal. One OCTA official acknowledged that public disapproval of the plan was likely but warned against overreacting to that disfavor.

But disapproval of the plan is warranted. It would be far better to run the carpool lane as originally planned: free to two or more, possible fines of $271 or more to single-person cars. The carpool lanes are not overcrowded at most times of the day on most of the freeways in Orange County. Right now the proposal looks more like a way to shake loose more money from motorists than to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.