HOV lanes were created to fight CONGESTION not pollution.

Having one person in a vehicle instead of 4 is a problem. Doesnt matter if the car runs on moondust, they’re creating congestion for everyone around them.

HOV exceptions are ridiculous political pandering to the wealthiest constituents. Just because you can afford a Volt doesnt mean you have the right to slow down people using the HOV lane as it was intended….to move the maximum amount of people.

JJJJ –

I believe you are incorrect in stating the motivation for HOV lanes. If the goal was to move the max number of people, HOV lanes would be counter-productive, the highest road capacity would be achieved by opening all lanes for load-balancing. The goal was always to cut pollution – originally by encouraging ride-sharing, and later by encouraging less-polluting driving means.

The main intention seems to be moving people:
http://www2.dot.ca.gov/hq/paffairs/faq/faq79.htm

JJJJ makes a good point that HOV lanes are to reduce congestin not to reduced pollution. Let’s assume for a moment that is acceptable to use HOV lane access as an incentive for consumers to purchase less polluting cars. Now look at a line from the article,

“…Enough is enough, according to Ford, Honda and advocates for the next wave of green automobiles that operate on grid-supplied electricity, natural gas and hydrogen…”

Recent revelations about natural gas drilling are casting a lot of doubt on the “greenness” of natural gas. There is evidence that up to 8% of natural gas leaks into the atmosphere. Natural gas, is mainly methane which is 21 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Virturally all hydrogen comes from natural gas. Electricity production also generates greenhouse gases. If we do use HOV access as an incentive for reducing pollution then the standard for choosing which cars get access must be based on a VERY thorough well-to-wheels accounting of greenhouse gases.

JJJJ-

You are right about the capacity, I stand corrected. (Although I disagree with you on a policy issue regarding using HOV lanes to stimulate low-pollution cars even at the expense of lowering the capacity).

JJJJ-

I agree with your that mass transit is the the best way to reduce pollution; unfortunately it’s like to say that the best way to reduce fuel consumption is to make everyone keep the tires inflated properly… This county has struggled to get more people into public transportation and out of their cars. I think it will happen eventually, but will take decades. In the meantime, more immediate steps are needed.

Regarding the tax incentives for volt/leaf – you would be right if the demand indeed outstripped the supply that much. Does anyone have good info in this regard?

As an owner of one of those expiring yellow stickers in Northern California, I absolutely agree that the time has come for the hybrid incentive program to end. Many hybrids are now priced comparably to other cars in their size/class—in fact, when we bought ours used nearly a decade ago, it wasn’t much more that other used mid-sized cars. The technology doesn’t need the boost of an incentive—gas prices alone are pushing people towards hybrids quite nicely.

I *do* think the California HOV incentive for CNG, hydrogen, and electric cars should continue through 2015, as planned. That’s because I see our state’s HOV lanes as serving multiple functions: moving more people more efficiently from both a logistics and an emissions stand point. California state law currently requires regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks quite dramatically by 2035, and the HOV lanes are one tool to do so. I would love to see HOV lanes used strategically to encourage carpooling, transit ridership, and clean air vehicles that have big enough downsides that people may otherwise be reluctant to invest in them. (Electric car radius, uncertainty around charging locations and costs, limited options for CNG fueling stations, etc.) Hybrids were those vehicles a decade ago, but I don’t know anyone today who questions whether a hybrid will really run, whether you can put regular gas in it, or if a mechanic will really be willing to work on it—all among the concerns raised a decade ago.

While I hear the concerns that electric vehicles are largely an option for the wealthy, I’m not convinced that’s the case. In California, for instance, a Nissan Leaf runs you in the mid-20s, which is on par with many other cars its size, electric or otherwise. And the stickers for these cars are currently unlimited, as opposed to the hybrid stickers, which were limited to the early buyers. But more importantly, I’m not sure I care too much about this. If we need wealthy residents to be the guinea pigs for new technologies, so be it—they can pay the premiums for these cars now to ensure that ten years from now, these technologies will be available to the masses at much reduced costs. This is how the auto industry operated long before hybrids and electrics came along (see also: the Model T!) And I prefer this option to, say, the HOT lanes California is experimenting with—HOV lanes that you can pay a toll to drive in as a single-occupancy vehicle (a form of congestion pricing). If we’re going to talk about buying access to the HOV lanes, let’s start there—not with the ILEVs.

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