Work to Add Freeway Car-Pool Lanes Begins

Work got under way this week on a $7.9-million project to add a car-pool lane in each direction on a seven-mile stretch of the San Diego Freeway, from the Harbor Freeway near Torrance to 120th Street near Hawthorne.

The California Department of Transportation plans to add so-called high occupancy vehicle, or HOV, lanes to virtually every freeway in the Los Angeles area, said District 7 Director Jerry B. Baxter.

“An HOV lane carries 2 1/2 times the number of people as a regular freeway lane,” Baxter said. “Each HOV project will be roughly equivalent to adding five additional lanes to the freeway--and that’s going to have a major impact on improving traffic flow.” Work includes reconstructing the median shoulders for car-pool lanes, constructing a concrete median barrier and re-stripping the eight-lane freeway to 10 lanes.