Carpool Lanes

* Re “Carpool Lanes Don’t Cut Traffic or Pollution, So Let’s Ditch ‘Em,” Orange County Voices, March 7: I think that one major point was overlooked. We all know from driving on our local freeways that the carpool lanes are not always as useful as we wish. However, they do serve a very important purpose.

The diamond lanes act as an incentive to better our environmental conditions. I believe that through the motivation of carpool lanes, we as a county are sending out the right message.

With the growing environmental problems, we must do all that we can to try and instill messages of limitation and compassion for our environment’s condition.

Writer Wayne King points out that a carpool lane only provides time-saving incentives when all other roads are congested. But is this not their function? When else would they provide a time-saving incentive? Carpool lanes are made to motivate drivers to carpool.

Those who are against carpool lanes are usually those who are watching alone, from the stop-and-go of mixed-flow traffic, as the cars in the carpool lane drive casually by.

AIMEE KALMONSON

Laguna Niguel