Toting Up Pluses and Minuses, Ins and Outs of Car-Pool Lanes

Your editorial criticizing the County Transportation Commission for looking at the use of car-pool lanes (“All in the Car Pool,” Sept. 14) is unnecessarily harsh.

Car-pool lanes are becoming a way of life in California and throughout the United States. Air quality regulations and traffic congestion relief benefits require that just about every urban freeway in California have at least one car-pool lane in each direction.

But the rules governing car-pool lanes vary from state to state and, in California, from county to county. Orange County has 24-hour car-pool lanes. Marin County has car-pool lanes only in the morning and evening peak hours. Until recently, Los Angeles had peak hour car-pool lanes that could not be used at all in the off-peak hours.

We believe these rules should be the same everywhere in California, so that commuters who live in one area and work in another won’t have to comply with differing sets of instructions as they cross county lines. As one of the state’s leaders of car-pool lane operation, the OCTC is drafting proposed legislation to effect that goal.

But before we push any standard regulation for car-pool lane operation, we need to know accident rates, violation rates, and other comparative data for car-pool lanes in other areas so we can champion the most effective operational scenario; not just our own. The study you criticized will gather that information which is not presently available from any other single source.

We appreciate your strong position endorsing car-pooling and car-pool lanes. Many of us on the Commission share your beliefs. But before we begin to advocate state and national policies, we should have good data rather than just good vibes.

DANA W. REED

Chairman,

Orange County

Transportation Commission