101 express lanes

Agreed! They have resulted in more congestion, not less.

Thanks for your letter, Mr. Xuereb. Don’t forget that the lanes were also a union labor giveaway in both implementing the lanes and in obtaining toll revenue from these paid lanes on “freeways.”

Here is what we know about the 101 highway widening:

- Only car poolers and buses can reduce congestion, GHG emissions, and provide 'Equity' at the same time

- Only 40% of cars on the HOT lanes are car poolers [SFGATE]

- An estimated 50% of those are car pool cheaters [SFGATE]

- As predicted, we now have more cars on the road, fewer people on public transit, bigger 'fiscal cliff'

- Carpool lanes have never induced carpooling, the percentage of car poolers has been going down in America for decades

- Car poolers are mostly 'natural car poolers', basically counting family members and babies on the backseat. Those don't reduce trips nor GHG and might actually incentivize more trips

- Any revenue is basically eaten up by adding law enforcement to catch the car pool cheaters.

- To make the car pool lanes look more useful they moved SamTrans buses from local routes to regional routes. Therefore making SamTrans compete directly with Caltrain.

So why were Rico Medina (SamTrans), David Canepa (Caltrain), both Papans, Davina Hurt (BAQMMD) celebrating these Express Lanes?

There is no sane explanation there and yet they will continue with the 101/92 nonsense and more 'express lanes' north of 380.