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Carpool and Zipper Lanes

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  • Carpool and Zipper Lanes

    Traffic totally sucked this morning. Though admittedly, it pretty much sucks every day. I leave home at 5:30 a.m., but still get stuck in bumper-to-bumper hell whenever there's an accident or stall. And this morning, there were quite a few. I decided to tolerate Perry & Price on KSSK to get the scoops.

    After some bureaucratic confusion (DOT vs. HPD vs. the city Traffic Management Center), they were able to raise Rodney Haraga, who decided to loosen restrictions on the Zipper Lane to vehicles with at least two (instead of three) passengers.

    Now, in major traffic disasters, they open it up to everyone. But the middle step seemed to rub some folks the wrong way. One caller was annoyed when she realized cops were pulling over Zipper Lane drivers with only one occupant. Which, of course, she knew was the rule, but it annoyed her anyway.

    While a major mass transit solution is the Big Picture debate, I was wondering what folks thought about Honolulu's carpool/zipper setup. As Michael Perry noted, some municipalities with zipper setups just make it a regular lane. Ours holds it out as a major incentive to encourage carpools. Personally, I agree with that.

    Now, I commute from Mililani. Usually, I carpool with my mom, and love using the carpool (diamond) lane. But, I occasionally prefer to drive myself -- I know that means I sit in traffic more, but that's the price I pay for having my own car with me all day and listening to all the stuff I like to listen to en route. When I'm being a "good" commuter, I like that reward... and of course, get annoyed at carpool cheaters and cheer when the cops are doing carpool/zipper enforcement.

    I imagine HPD has better things to do with their time, but I'm glad they include carpool/zipper enforcement in their duty rotation. If we're going to have the "carrot and stick" approach to discouraging single-occupant drivers, we actually have to wield the carrot occasionally -- otherwise, the special lanes are pointless. I only wish they could do photo enforcement from overpasses or something, as the way H-1 is now -- with every inch used for a lane -- there's only a few spots cops can actually pull cars over without creating more problems than they solve.

    I gather, though, that some folks dislike carpool lanes. Many folks "cheat" all the time, basically playing the odds against a smoother drive into town. So maybe I'm just old fashioned.

    If you drive, do you carpool? Do you cheer or jeer at those who do and get what is, often, only a smidgen of roadway benefits?
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