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On one hand I think it's great that they allow people travelling alone the option of using these extra 2 lanes. But it's a terribly flawed system and only serves to line the pockets of revenue since it has made traffic worse since not every person with a carpool wants to pay for something that will allow them to travel freely in such lanes anyway. ?? It just doesn't make sense.
The "carpool" lanes themselves were designed to promote cleaner air by encouraging drivers to.... wait for it.... carpool! As such taking more cars off the road during peak traffic times. As an added side bonus, I'm sure they thought traffic would somehow become lighter in the process.
Well that pretty much backfired as Los Angeles is far too overcrowded to begin with and they keep trying to make gold out of bullshit by always changing a freeway system that was designed in the 50's. To accomodate the population of... the 50's. (Could have been the 60's but you catch my drift) Helloooooooooooooo
So now by turning the old "carpool" lanes into "HOV or Fasttrack" lanes, they've basically just shouted "Screw air quality!!! These lanes are now up to the highest bidder!" Meanwhile traffic is even worse and the people already carpooling are getting screwed monetarily in the process.
Real cool.
What they OUGHT to do and what they SHOULD have done was simply open up those 4 LANES (2 each direction) to all traffic. Guess what? Traffic actually would lighten (somewhat) and all the people that are carpooling to save gas or trees or whatever are still going to do that anyway.
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