HOV lanes

While sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate the other day, as I drove home from work, I looked to my left, and as is often the case in these situations, I noticed the sparsely populated HOV lanes.

And I started to think. When you are stopped in a traffic jam—not just a slow-down, but an actual jam—how many cars are stopped, say, in a one-mile stretch? Now, I suppose I could consult my local “trafficologist” (the local weather guy calls himself a “trafficologist” when he is doing traffic reports on the radio), but somehow I don’t think he took “Traffic Jam Research and Analysis” when he was at the University of Buffalo School of Trafficology. So, stay with me a minute while I do some quick calculations.

1. I am going to estimate that in a traffic jam, there is a car every twenty feet per lane (this allows for slow movement and short gaps).

2. There are 5,280 feet in a mile. Therefore, if there is on average one car every twenty feet, each lane would have 264 cars in a mile.

3. There are three lanes of traffic. Therefore the total number of cars is 264 x 3 = 792, or nearly 800 cars.

Does this sound reasonable?

Now, as I sat there in traffic, I could see a good swath of the accompanying HOV lane, perhaps a good half-mile stretch. It was mostly open road. Every ten to fifteen seconds a few cars would race by, unencumbered by the nearby jam. So naturally the next question I asked myself was “How many cars are in a one-mile stretch of the HOV lane?” Again, I need to make some educated estimates.

1. The HOV cars are doing about 70 MPH. Therefore, they cover one mile in a little under a minute.

2. My best guess is that three to five cars zoomed by every 10-15 seconds.

3. Therefore, giving the benefit of the doubt to higher HOV usage, I’ll say that five cars go by every ten seconds. So, in a minute, there would be about thirty cars in the HOV lane.

Still with me? That’s 800 vs. 30.

All this really leads to my overall question of this whole topic, and that is, what is the purpose of having HOV lanes in the first place? I thought they were established to cut down on traffic and to save energy (gas). Well, in this case (and other cases that I have observed), neither appears to be taking place.

My suggestion would be to open up the HOV lanes to everybody during rush hour. In the scenario that I have described, five lanes would be available instead of three. I see three main benefits. First, there would be no traffic jams day-in and day-out on that stretch of interstate. Second, I believe energy costs would go down. Instead of 800 cars burning fuel over an extended period of time, motorists could be on their way and finish their daily consumption of fuel more quickly. And third, I would submit that frustration, anger, and road rage would diminish considerably. More happiness. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway?

I would caution you that I am not a licensed trafficologist, so I may be way off on this. But I would suggest that there are a number of possible explanations to the current state of affairs. Maybe the traffic authorities have not thought of the things I am saying. Or, they have studied these things and determined that I am wrong. Or, they have studied it, know that I am right, but continue the status quo, perhaps viewing HOV lanes as some kind of social experiment to effect a desired behavior among the populace. If it is the third explanation, then it is not working.