Hi,
The situation here is a bit different. The HOV lanes are mostly on limited access highways. In some cases, they represent 1/3 of the lanes on the road.
While buses do indeed get some benefit, the bus service in greater Seattle doesn't do much good. It is mostly a radial system (to and from downtown) in an area where jobs are scattered all around. When I was working for Boeing in Kent, the bus would have taken me almost three hours per day for a 14 mile (one way) commute. I'd've done a lot better on a bicycle if I wanted to put up with Seattle rain :)
BTW, what's wrong with stringing multiple contractions together in informal writing? That's the way we speak, isn't it?
The main justification for HOV lanes was to reduce traffic (Seattle rating in the top three or so places in every traffic study). Now a good public transportation system would do that, but then the state would have to actually do something -- which Washington is totally incapable of. Instead they made the traffic worse, and encouraged poorer driving habits with HOV lanes.
My own informal measurements taken when I was still commuting was that about 1/3 of the cars in the HOV lanes were "weaseling" (i.e., taking advantage of the fact that Washington police only enforce the speed limits.) Most of the remainder were the day care or soccer moms, neither of which gets a single car off the road. About one car in ten actually had two or more people who actually looked like licensed drivers. And a third of those were construction company trucks.
So, yes, when I can I use them. But HOV lanes seem like a stupid move to me.
--Pete
The situation here is a bit different. The HOV lanes are mostly on limited access highways. In some cases, they represent 1/3 of the lanes on the road.
While buses do indeed get some benefit, the bus service in greater Seattle doesn't do much good. It is mostly a radial system (to and from downtown) in an area where jobs are scattered all around. When I was working for Boeing in Kent, the bus would have taken me almost three hours per day for a 14 mile (one way) commute. I'd've done a lot better on a bicycle if I wanted to put up with Seattle rain :)
BTW, what's wrong with stringing multiple contractions together in informal writing? That's the way we speak, isn't it?
The main justification for HOV lanes was to reduce traffic (Seattle rating in the top three or so places in every traffic study). Now a good public transportation system would do that, but then the state would have to actually do something -- which Washington is totally incapable of. Instead they made the traffic worse, and encouraged poorer driving habits with HOV lanes.
My own informal measurements taken when I was still commuting was that about 1/3 of the cars in the HOV lanes were "weaseling" (i.e., taking advantage of the fact that Washington police only enforce the speed limits.) Most of the remainder were the day care or soccer moms, neither of which gets a single car off the road. About one car in ten actually had two or more people who actually looked like licensed drivers. And a third of those were construction company trucks.
So, yes, when I can I use them. But HOV lanes seem like a stupid move to me.
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?