Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Public Transportation and car-pool lanes


The HOT lanes mentioned in the paper today allow cars driven by a person alone to pay to use the car-pool and public transportation lanes. This is a quote from an article in the Tacoma News Tribune. "We've already confirmed that the SR 167 HOT lanes are doing what they were designed to do: reduce congestion and improve travel times for everyone traveling on this corridor," state toll director Craig Stone said in a WSDOT news release issued this month.




The speaker means car by car congestion, and uses the term everybody, which refers to individual people. I think it must be true that the speaker is not discussing per capita congestion, but car by car congestion. The ecological purpose of the car-pool lanes is ruined by this use. Instead of this offense against public transportation, there should be special lines at busy post offices for people who have used a public transportation card that day. That would serve as an incentive to people to use public transportation.

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