URGENT HELP NEEDED NOW - END HYBRIDS ON HOV

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Originally posted by NoSUV
[br]OK. So aside from HOT and extending hybrid exemption, what's your idea?

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1. Provide more park and ride lots.
2. VDOT or County negotiate with Churches, bowling alleys, swim clubs, soccer fields and businesses that can handle slug parking. Behind mall buildings, county park buildings, PG&E or VDOT maintenance yards, etc.
3. Allow on street parking for slugs on streets like Guinea, Wakefield Chapel or Braeburn in Fairfax County. Eliminante the route 29 buses. Use the money to PAY slugs to ride. Use an on demand van for mid day service.
4. Establish Police patrols for the slug park and ride lots.
5. Provide downstream nodes for slugs. Slugs may have to switch rides once or twice for shortest trip. Emulate packet switching
6. Improve slug pick up points in DC, Crystal City, Alexandria and Skyline.
7. Allow slug parking in VRE and METRO lots.
8. Market the drive alones in the regular lanes on the advantages of slugging.
9. Ramp meter the regular lanes with queue jumpers for HOV vehicles.
10. Target 1,800 vehicles per lane per hour in the regular lanes instead of 2,400 vplph. Combine ramp metering and easier passenger pick up to get the car count reduced.
11. Stop promoting METRO, VRE and public buses. Money pits. Use the money to PAY slugs to ride.
12. Pay companies and hotels that have vans to shuttle commuters to better pick up points.
13. Review land use plans where allowance was made in floor area ratios for reduced parking. Build more parking for slugs. Space to be rented by VDOT, County or City.
14. Advise certain politicians from California to put a sock in it. Not to mention any names but Dan Issa comes to mind.
15. Air reruns of Sesame Street in which Big Bird talks about bigger than. Have elected officials view the show, write a 500 work essay and explain to their constituents how the show applies to commuting.
16. Repeat the TV viewing exercise using some common facts. Twenty-four hours in a day. Why waste it sitting in traffic? Acceleration kills fuel efficiency. Why operate roads in stop-go (mostly stopped) mode?
17. Complete the service roads that parallel Little River Turnpike between the City of Fairfax and Shirley Highway. Encourage slug parking on the service roads.
18. Nullify anti-jitney laws.

Oh, did I mention more park and ride lots? Did I mention reviewing land use plans vis-a-vis required parking? Did I mention more parking on service roads?

dickboyd@aol.com

OK. So aside from HOT and extending hybrid exemption, what's your idea?

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Originally posted by Bob
[br]It's elitist.
It ends slugging.
It increases congestion.
No guarantees that HOV will remain free or even cheaper.
No guarantees of anything.
We give up control of public highways.
Non-compete clause impairs future construction.
It increases pollution.

Everyone loses.
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Not elitist - in fact, more egalitarian than system currently in use.
Won't end slugging - picking up slugs saves driver $2K/year.
No guarantees that HOV will remain the same as today - in fact, HOV highly unlikely to remain the same.
We have as much control of public highways as now.
Non-compete clause has no bearing.
Pollution decreases.
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Was on HOV 395 4pm on 4/4/05. No other cars around for 1/4 mile. Regular lanes moving at a snail's pace. Only a matter of time before transportation officials figure out that HOV has unused capacity much of the time compared to regular lanes and get around to fixing it. You have a choice: do the ostrich with your head in the sand, or come up with a better solution. BTW, saying that the current method works is ignoring the facts.
Bob

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The problem remains on how to reduce the OVERALL congestion. HOV lanes generally have excess capacity, especially compared to the regular lanes. A balancing effort is needed. One way is to allow some of the SOVs into the HOVs, which is what the hybrid exemption does quite nicely. Another way is through the use of tolls, which would allow market forces to achieve the balance by raising/lowering the toll until the desired balance is achieved. Toll could be graduated based on occupancy: $4 base fare, reduced by $2 for each additional passenger. Could make "CF" plates count as an additional person. HOV-3 still ride for free; SOV hybrids pay $2; regular SOVs pay $4. If HOV lanes are too crowded, double the toll. If balance too far the other way, cut the toll in half. Everyone wins.

If you are really ambitious, you might include Virginia State Police on your pro HOV mailing list.

Most police can't afford to live in northern Virginia. Most of the Troopers that patrol Shirley Highway are from some other part of the state. Shirley Highway and the Beltway may be the first congested highways that they have ever seen.

Police have not been trained in the nuances of free flow traffic. They have more likely been indoctrinated in capacity flow.

Police have no incentive to enforce occupancy requirements. Reversible Shirley is dangerous for random stops. There has been one fatality of a trooper enforcing HOV rules. There may be some hesitancy to enforce something that does not seem to be worth while. Read "worth while" as guidance from on high. On high being Richmond, not the local Barracks.

Alternate locations of enforcement would be safer. Also recruiting local police to enforce would help.

But all that is moot if there aren't enough slugs to fill the seats and not enough drivers to pick up slugs.

Recruit a slug a day. Get enough slugs and ALL the lanes will flow freely. Not just the reversible lanes.

Police do have a lot of pressure from the drive alones to open up Shirley reversible lanes first come first serve.

Police also have lot of pressure to squash slugs in favor of transit.

For instance Braeburn Drive in Fairfax County could be better served by slugs than METRO buses. For the amount of subsidy given METRO, people could even be paid to ride as slugs.

A voice crying in the wilderness.

dickboyd@aol.com