Southern California is different from any other place, no question about it. It has mountains and the ocean is just hours apart with beautiful weather all year around. It also has some of the worst traffic problems in the world.
It is funny because you will almost always see only one person in the car. It is not like our state has not tried to support carpooling. But this is California, a land where people always have something to do and always at different times.
Carpooling is dead in Southern California and always will be.
California knew it had a crisis on its hands when traffic got worse and worse every year. So the carpool lane was introduced in hopes of encouraging Californians to ride together. Their hope was to not only help the flow of traffic, but to keep the amount of cars from growing, thus hoping to use less fuel. They also put little carpool lanes on freeway ramps, which I know, we go on them anyway. Many college campuses (like ours) have parking benefits aimed toward carpoolers, like having the best spots nearest to class. Yet it always seems empty compared to the rest of the lot.
What is pretty bad is that only a fraction of traffic, actually estimated around seven percent, according to hovworld.com, can actually use the carpool lane. That means the other 93 percent have to use the other three or four lanes provided. Did California, or the United States in general, make a mistake in setting up carpool lanes?
Think about it. If the carpool lane were cut, then there would be one extra lane for traffic. We all hate it when we are moving half a mile per hour while those carpoolers are zooming 70 right past us.
Is this a slap in the face to those of us who are not able to carpool due to scheduling differences and geographic location? One lane may not do miracles, but it would make a difference.
The thing is that so much money was spent on freeway design to accommodate the carpool lane. It would be foolish to get rid of it. But perhaps there are other strategies that can not only help traffic but keep carpool lanes and their purpose in existence.
One strategy is to eliminate the carpool lane during morning and evening rush hour traffic so anyone can use all lanes of the freeway when it is needed most. And when rush hour is over, the carpool lane can go back to normal. Or perhaps experiment with some freeways in the L.A. area by taking away the carpool lane and studying its effects.
Carpooling will probably never catch on in Southern California. Everyone lives a different life with different schedules with different places to drive to. And since everyone is independent, public transportation seems to be in the very back of their minds.
If you have a car, you are going to drive it, not take the bus. Maybe in the future Southern California will try strategies that have been tested in other locations to improve traffic, but until then, keep on truckin’.
Daniel Macri is a junior film major and a weekly columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
