Broken zipper lane

The reason that I can get from my kid's school to my job in under a half hour? An express bus that takes the northern HOV lane into the city. When you consider that it makes van and carpooling and using the buses much faster, HOV lanes are very much worth having. HOV lanes don't take as many vehicles - but they do carry more people than the stuck lanes beside them.

I don't commute by car, but I do use the lanes when I can. They can save enormous amounts of time at peak hours. When I needed to make repeated evening runs to IKEA to get kitchen rebuild supplies, I would draft a kid or two to ride shotgun so I could use the lanes from Somerville to the tunnel and then on the Southeast Expressway. The lanes really are worth using when they move and the rest of the highway does not.

Two reasons:

First, when a road is nearing capacity, the multiple lane section will slow down to a crawl or stop (especially if something like an accident were to happen). A single lane section with limited access will not. As long as cars are able to get out of the end of the lane as fast are cars are able to get into it, it will always move at speed. No weaving, exiting, etc. means that traffic will always flow. I'm not sure if you've ever been in a full-on traffic jam while the HOV lane smoothly continues on by, but it happens...a lot.

Secondly, if you intentionally bring a second person who needs to commute into the city so as to use the HOV lane, then you are reducing the number of cars on the road. That improves everyone's situation, so encouraging that is useful.

Finally, places like the Tobin Bridge near NYC and the SE Expressway create their HOV or extra lanes from the opposite side of the road where traffic volume is much lower in the reverse commute direction. So, not only does the HOV lane provide both of the above benefits, but it is also simply bonus asphalt for all of the cars going in that direction.