Right now, you can cruise in the HOV lane of most local freeways with just two people in your car, but that policy is going under review. Metro has voted to look into changing it to a minimum of three people to qualify as high occupancy.
HOV lanes are meant to offer an express alternative for people willing to carpool, but lately it hasn’t quite been working out that way in and around Los Angeles. About two-thirds of local HOV lanes are now listed as "degraded," Curbed L.A. reports, meaning that they have fallen below a federal standard of cars moving at average speeds of at least 45 miles per hour during peak hours.
In order to help them get back to actually offering a speedier option to reward car-sharing, the Metro Board of Directors, which oversees the roadways, is now considering the change to requiring three people per car. Other alternatives that have been suggested to the board include metering the HOV lanes to limit the number of cars able to enter at one time, or going in a totally different direction and doing away with HOV lanes and opening them up to standard traffic to spread out overall congestion.
The same study that will examine the HOV question will also take up the express lane system in use on the 10 and 110 freeways which uses FasTrak transponders to allow drivers to pay for the privilege of using the lanes as a solo driver or carpool with variable fees depending on demand, time of day and the occupancy of the vehicle.
In any event, now might be a good time to either make a third commuter friend or start taking the train.
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