Traffic Jam!

Today was a little change of pace for me in the morning. I had to take my daughter to a doctor's appointment so instead of my usual routine of leaving very early in the morning to go to work and also going against traffic, today we left around 8:00 and headed east on the 10 Freeway towards Baldwin Park. Actually this drive should have been against traffic also, but we wound up getting stuck in a traffic jam.

As we crawled along, I observed how wonderfully well put to use the carpool lane was. I would estimate that about once every 5 seconds or so a car would go whizzing past us; considering the number of cars massed up alongside us was in the thousands, this was a pretty slim ratio of carpoolers to unfortunates stuck in the regular lanes. Granted, we were supposed to be headed against traffic so the number of cars would be less, but I also spent some time glancing across the freeway to the westbound, incoming traffic and found that there were not that many cars using the carpool lane on that side, either.

Well, it turned out that there was an accident up ahead. A two-car accident that had happened some time ago because both cars were along the right shoulder, the occupants standing by their vehicles waiting for tow truck to come. This was nothing at all spectacular but yet they managed to bring traffic to a crawl while all the yoyo heads had to stop and see what happened.

So we went to the doctor, luckily we didn't have to stay too long, and then a little bit after 9:00 we began heading back. Now we were westbound on the 10 Freeway. Where the heck did all these cars come from??? Yes I know we were now headed into town and thus the traffic would be heavier than those people going in the opposite direction, but this was after 9:00 - don't these people work???

Now when we were headed toward the doctor, my daughter asked why we didn't get in the carpool lane. Well first of all, I sort of remembered that "carpool" on the 10 Freeway was considered to be 3 or more occupants, and there were just the two of us. Secondly, there was nowhere we could have joined the carpool lane anyway. On the left of us were two sets of double yellow lines which means you are not allowed to cross them. Never ever. So even if there were three of us, we couldn't get in the carpool lane. As we continued driving, I kept looking for signs to confirm the number of occupants in a vehicle that would constitute a carpool, but every sign I saw only indicated the lane was for carpools and that there was a $271 maximum fine for violators. But no sign that actually told you what constitutes a carpool. Finally when we were almost at our destination I saw a sign that said carpools mean 3 or more occupants. So I was correct.

I mentioned above that on the way back we ran into a traffic crunch. Well this time I saw a sign that said that from 5-9 am Monday through Friday a carpool was three or more. But after 9 am a carpool was 2 or more. So, very happy about this, we joined the carpool lane and sped past all the suckers backed up way way back to who knows where. However, as we approached our return destination my daughter asked where we were supposed to exit the carpool lane. There was just an endless set of double yellow lines ahead of us, certainly way past our exit. So I caved in and broke the law, crossing the lines to merge into the common people in the regular lanes, then exited the freeway.

Now let me tell you, whoever designed the carpool system on the 10 Freeway (and the carpool system for Southern California in general) is an idiot. And let me tell you why:

First off, carpools are totally impractical for So Cal. We are sooo spread out around here, that it is not very easy to even find anyone to carpool with, let alone two other people. Yes if you are in New York or Hong Kong, places that have high concentrations of people in a relatively small area, then it makes sense. But in Southern California? At least make the magic number for being a carpool TWO people, not three!

Then I also noticed that a good many of the people using the carpool lane didn't even meet the required number of minimum occupants in a vehicle anyway. Many had only two (as far as I could tell; maybe there are more dwarfs on the freeways than you think), and many had only the driver.

Finally, as I mentioned before, the pair of double yellow lines is unyielding! From beginning to end it seems like there in only one place in between that you can either enter or exit the carpool lane. Pretty much every other carpool lane I've seen has entry/exit points for each freeway exit. But not the 10. Nope. Unless you want to break the law, you have to live at least a certain distance away, and if you are at least that distance, then there is only one place to join the carpool lane unless you get on at the very beginning. Same thing on the way back - if you don't live a far enough distance away, past the only entry/exit point, then never mind, you can't use the carpool lane even if you have 50 people in your vehicle because you can't cross those pair of double yellow lines. Now how stupid is that?? What motivation is there for people who don't live far enough away to use the carpool lane?

Now, on the 10 Freeway there is the carpool lane in both directions, plus a divider area between the carpool and the fast lane that itself is wide enough to be another traffic lane. So that's like two more lanes on each side of the freeway (the carpool and the divider between the carpool and the fast lane). On top of that, you have the median which has tracks for the Metrorail. The Metrorail that every time I look at it, is never close to being filled. So that's another lane or two. Mass transportation in New York, Hong Kong and other densely-populated areas is always crowded, because it is convenient. Our mass transportation is never crowded. So don't you think something is wrong here?

We have a carpool lane whose usage is probably a ratio of 1 per 1,000 or more cars. It effectively takes up two lanes on the freeway. You have to have three people (at least on the 10 Freeway) to make a carpool so that rules a lot of people out. Don't you think something is wrong with this picture? Don't you think it would make more sense to open up those two lanes to everyone? Carpools, at least as they now operate, don't make sense for Southern California! Every city is not the same. We are not New York (for which we should be thankful, although those people in New York are thankful they aren't flaky Californians). It is just an absurd picture that I saw this morning, and what is worse is that it happens Monday through Friday, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. And it gets worse.

Just what the heck is our transportation management group thinking??