Car-Poolers Signal a Liking for Slow Lane

What if you built a carpool lane and no one came?

That’s a question Orange County transportation planners might start asking themselves in light of a survey released last week by an organization advocating carpools.

The survey found that despite the greatest concentration of carpool lanes in Southern California, more than a third of Orange County’s ride sharers prefer the slow lane.

“They perceive [carpool lanes] as less convenient,” said Cheryl Collier, a spokeswoman for Southern California Rideshare, which surveyed 2,925 commuters in six counties. Car-poolers’ reasons range from the fact that many have short commutes with many stops to a growing perception that regular lanes are speeding up while carpool lanes are slowing down.

Wayne King, a member of the group Drivers for Highway Safety, thinks he knows the real reason so many people are avoiding a way to speed up their drive.

Quipped King: “Because they’re stupid.”

According to the survey, conducted in 1996, 14% of Orange County’s commuters share rides regularly and 79% of those--by far the highest percentage in the region--say they have access to carpool lanes along their routes. Yet when asked if they use the lanes, only 65% answered in the affirmative, the lowest percentage in Southern California. The corresponding number in Los Angeles County was 75%.

A spokesman for King’s organization said the survey offers strong evidence of what the group has been saying all along: Carpool lanes don’t encourage car-pooling. “They promised these great things with the diamond lane, and now it hasn’t happened,” said Bill Ward, the group’s chairman.

Collier suggested several reasons Orange County car-poolers might not be using their designated lanes. For starters, she said, county residents are not among those with the longest commutes, which would reduce their motivation for using the carpool lane. “We have found that carpool lanes tend to save about a minute a mile,” Collier said. “The longer the trip distance, the more value commuters place on a carpool lane.”

Survey results show that Orange County residents commute an average of 17.1 miles each way to work, slightly longer than people living in Los Angeles County and about the same as those in Ventura County, but considerably shorter than the residents of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

In addition, Orange County residents have posted a significant increase since 1991--from 16% to 24%--in the number of commuters who make stops on their way to work. Collier said these stops, often for such things as dropping kids off at day care or for doing the family shopping, make maneuvering in and out of carpool lanes less desirable.

And finally, Collier said, a comparatively large number of Orange County commuters believe traffic conditions are improving. Asked whether freeway traffic is better now than a year ago, 26% of them--considerably more than in any other county--answered in the affirmative.

Instructed to rate their commute satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 9, the average Orange County motorist gave a rating of 6.6, a full point better than in 1991. The satisfaction ratings of Los Angeles County commuters improved by 0.8 of a point, while San Bernardino County commuters improved their assessment by 0.5.

“Commuters perceive that the congestion on their freeways is better now than a year ago,” Collier said, attributing the change to improvements on Orange County freeways, including reconstruction of the El Toro Y and the opening of toll roads. “The more their satisfaction levels increase,” she said, “the more difficult it is to get them out” of the regular lanes.

That could be augmented by the fact that as traffic speeds up in the regular lanes, it may be slowing down in the carpool lane.

“I’ve noticed a lot of times, especially in the late afternoon, that if you’re in a carpool lane, you’re going slower than the rest of the freeway,” said Angel Johnson, a spokeswoman for the California Highway Patrol in Orange County. “It’s always been known that eventually the carpool lane would become saturated. If that happens more and more frequently, maybe the alternative would be to restrict it to cars with three or more people.”

Michael McNally, an associate professor of civil engineering and specialist at UC Irvine on travel behavior, suggested one way to clear carpool lanes would be to turn them into long-distance expressways with exits every 10 miles.

Orange County Transportation Authority officials say there are no immediate plans to implement either of these ideas, although they have discussed increasing minimum occupancy requirements.

“We are happy about the fact that people are finding their commutes are improving,” OCTA spokesman John Standiford said.

The use of carpool lanes should increase, he said, with completion of work to expand the county’s 71 miles of the specialized lanes to 90 by 2000. “Overall, we are satisfied that the carpool lanes are relieving congestion,” Standiford said.

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Avoiding Carpool Lanes

Orange County car-poolers have more access to high-occupancy vehicle lanes than those in other counties but use them less:

Car-poolers with high-occupancy vehicle lanes available

Orange: 79%

Los Angeles: 46

Riverside: 56

San Bernardino: 43

Not Using Lanes

Orange: 35%

Los Angeles: 25

Riverside: 33

San Bernardino: 20

Source: Southern California Rideshare survey