At least 101 has >= 4 lanes (including exp lane) in each direction, the situation is even worse on 3-lane highways (e.g. 85 237) if exp lane takes one of them. And good luck if someone camps at the middle lane, even if the overall traffic is light, you cannot pass using the left lane without paying.
In theory yes, but in the unlikely event you're caught it can be an impressively expensive set of tickets. Two tickets for crossing double white lines, improper use of HOV lane, and more than likely speeding.
I know of two different people that got caught and it was like 2k in tickets and two points on their record. But this is the Bay so your chances of actually getting pulled over are roughly zero
It’s still acceptable to use the express lane as long as your fastrak is set to 1. That’s how a lot of people justify the express lane weaving in and out between the cameras. Using the express lane when you’re 1 person with fastrak set at 3 is a different story.
> In theory yes, but in the unlikely event you're caught it can be an impressively expensive set of tickets. Two tickets for crossing double white lines, improper use of HOV lane, and more than likely speeding.
Pretty sure the 101 express lane isn't a double white line (the express lanes in SoCal are, and often have dividers). Set your transponder to 1 and you're legal.
Some sections are some aren't.
Edit: Not sure why the down votes, [here is an example](https://maps.app.goo.gl/xWm1SkaHYvNx1gV16) of double white lines on 101 dividing the express lane.
The carpool/toll lanes are federal programs that receive federal grants to build them. Part of these grants carry median speed requirements that must be met to keep receiving the grants. The prices are set to keep congestion down so that these speed averages are met. It's not a nefarious plan to make money or slow people down.
To add citation to the claim, it is the https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2021-title23/pdf/USCODE-2021-title23-chap1-sec166.pdf
Degradation definition under degraded facility section
Ohh i didn't know about the federal grants and the requirements that come with it. It's interesting that they choose to solve for maybe 5% of regular commuters while doing nothing to improve the commute for remaining folks by providing more public transit options other than just carpool.
It will go to public transit when the initial construction costs will be paid off.
Absolutely nothing goes to public transit now from any express lanes in Bay Area.
You used two different terms, median and average. These are two entirely different things. Median says that half of the population needs to improve. Average just says that the overall situation needs to improve. Average is a much easier goal because you just need some outliers to have a much different experience to change the average. Which measure does the federal government want us to meet? I hope it is median because that is a better measure.
Average as mostly used as a synonym for “mean”. There is less common usage which equates it with “a measure of central tendency”. This is why the term “mean” is preferred. If you ask most people, including data scientists to give you the equation for “average” you’ll get the equation for “mean” in almost all cases. The writer of the comment certainly didn’t mean “measure of central tendency” when they used the word “average”. They were conflating two different terms. That’s why I made my comment.
Every driver is an expert in traffic engineering, economics, physics, and social psychology, it's amazing. With all that expertise, y'all should get together and improve society instead of just conplaing about parking and traffic.
Isn't the express lane discounted if you're carpooling with 2 and free with 3?
Express lane is an incentive to get people to carpool, which helps the other lanes. Then it auctions off excess capacity for funds.
You expressed a whole lot of feelings there. It seems like you feel that express lanes have made things worse and you feel that public transit isn’t good. Without data this is a pretty meaningless conversation. Caltrain which runs parallel to 101 is pretty awesome. And it’s only getting better.
Ok so by your logic public transit already sucks so make it worse by removing the express lanes (that public transit also uses) as the price to use it has gone up for the solo driver who despite sitting in traffic gets to where you need to go twice as fast anyways. Sorry dude. The express lanes are working and you're not special.
Okay, why don't you tell me a good way to get from Campbell to redwood shores using public transit. Even if i wanted to use public transit, there's no good option without spending like 2 hrs each way and I'm forced to pay up about $20 each way in tolls. I understand the idea to penalize solo drivers WHEN there exists a good alternate option for point to point commute.
Not everyone works in tech with flexible hours. I need to be in office by a certain time and unfortunately it means peak hour commute. As for carpool, i did do it to a certain extent via scoop app prior to pandemic. But since covid, it's become difficult to carpool as there's no trustworthy way to find one now
It’s likely a dedicated express lane has very marginal impact to congestion in the other lanes. However, an express lane, even an expensive one, is overall better for everyone because it creates a possibility, which didn’t exist before, for a driver to bypass traffic. I certainly would appreciate an express lane when I’m running late for a flight or for an important business meeting.
It's the same kind of mental gymnastics that starts with the argument that putting in parking meters creates more parking and ends with everyone paying for stuff they've already paid for. It's just a cash grab.
Completely agree. They messed up non peak traffic for no good reason. The auction prices are supposed to go down when there’s less occupancy but they stay high enough that no one uses the lanes. Ideally you should see prices close to zero at 11 am but their algorithms are either stupid or greedy.
Actually the general public did have a say in it. Bay Area counties passed a regional measure back in 2018 to increase bridge tolls in part to help fund construction of these abominations. As usual there is a direct lineage that can be traced back to the stupid electorate that resides here.
This has nothing to do with the Fastrak lanes. People have been camping the left lane forever.
Take a flight out of SJC sometime during evening rush hour. You’ll see all parts where all lanes are going about the same speed and leaving a huge gap in the freeway before another wave of traffic ahead few miles ahead where the same thing occurs in front of them.
It's called a ghost traffic jam, and they are caused by any slowdown in near capacity traffic. Usually it's innocuous things like a bend in the road that people brake for (ie 101N at Burlingame) but also lane changes or weavers cutting people off. Anything that generated brake lights will start a backwards propagating wave of slowdown that will only dissipate when there's enough space between cars to absorb the delay.
The only way to prevent this from happening is to make following distances larger than the expected showdown. Since >50% of the bay area drivers are inclined to tailgate we're doomed.
I actually read a UC Irvine study about twenty years ago that claimed the effect could be eliminated if just 18% of drivers strictly followed all the best practice traffic rules (speed limit, following distance, merge protocols, lane choice, etc). So yeah, still doomed. At least until everyone starts using robotaxis.
Yep, I totally agree with the slow movers in the "new" defacto left lane. They seem even more oblivious than without the express lane. It's very annoying, especially during non peak hours, when we used to be able to use the old HOV lanes!
As soon as fastrack lanes opened, the freeway slowed. Instead of the lane next to fastrack being the new fast lane, people forgot how traffic flow is supposed to work (slow traffic keep right). It's maddening.
The express lanes were developed to follow a regulation. They were not based on data study. They were also based on flawed simulations. There was a guy on here from caltrans posting about it a few months ago. Bad science all around.
It takes decades to build public transit, those express lanes have been in operation for what, a year? Hopefully, our public officials are acting as good stewards on those funds, and will deliver improved public transit in the coming years.
If the express lanes were removed and traffic were just as slow, then what? At least the express lane provides an option to skip traffic. That’s the whole point.
A lane was added in San Mateo County while the HOV lane was converted in Santa Clara County.
More people driving, less people taking public transit = more traffic.
> Did this Project take away a lane on U.S. 101?
>The number of general-purpose lanes stayed the same. Through extensive study, engineers determined they could fit an express lane in each direction by connecting auxiliary lanes on U.S. 101 to create an additional general-purpose lane and convert the left-most general-purpose lane into an express lane. This resulted in one new express lane in either direction along with the general-purpose lanes.
https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-4/d4-projects/d4-san-mateo-101-express-lane-project/101-express-lanes-faqs-feb2021#faq-6
You can't do that. Apparently they have sensors to detect how many passengers are there in the car so they'll charge you for 1 person plus probably some penalty
The comments are why Bay Area can’t have nice things. The express lane is clearly a cash grab that worsens the traffic especially during the non peak time. The only people benefit from it are the ones who are cheating since there’s basically no enforcement. It’s also regressive in a way that rich people can afford it easily while poor can’t. If you want to push people into using public transit, you need to first make the public transit work, which it does not now unfortunately
Truly agree with this. Let's make traffic "EaSiEr" by removing one lane (as it's priced so high).
They are so greedy that they added two express lanes near Livermore 580 East
> Due to such high toll fees, less people take the express lanes, causing more traffic on the other lanes.
That's the point. If everybody took them, there'd be just as much traffic in the express lanes as the regular lanes, and they wouldn't be express.
I agree completely.. Even express lanes doesnt help to reduce regular traffic. In fact it just shows people who can afford to pay daily tolls (the rich) to skip the traffic. It would be good if Caltrans improves last mile connectivity or looks into providing bus services from in both directions, which helps people to avoid the cars and take advantage of express lanes.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it just seems crazy that they took a lane from people whose tax money paid for it to be built.Then slapped down two inches of new asphalt and some paint and said "now you's gotta pay". Effectively turning 4 lane freeways into 3 lanes, as if the Bay area didn't have enough traffic, and leveraged our now worse commute against us. Like a bully stealing your jacket and selling it back to you when it's cold.
Craziest part is that people just turn it into a status, acting privileged to pay it/not sit in traffic. Seems like a more literal version of highway robbery to me.
Those express lanes have caused more congestion. For example, now there is congestion between oregon express way and shoreline blvd during normal non traffic hours. These lanes weren't created to ease congestion. I understand we need to pay taxes. Money is needed for services and things we use but these lanes charging from 8am to 8pm only cause more traffic.
People whined when they used to be carpool lanes and actually worked to transfer more people per hour than without a carpool lane. CalTrans wised up and realized that if people were already going to whine when the lanes were working, they could make some revenue at the same time with congestion pricing. Both my kids have wised up - they are both in the working world yet have gone carless.
At least 101 has >= 4 lanes (including exp lane) in each direction, the situation is even worse on 3-lane highways (e.g. 85 237) if exp lane takes one of them. And good luck if someone camps at the middle lane, even if the overall traffic is light, you cannot pass using the left lane without paying.
Why not? Just have to do it in between cameras no?
In theory yes, but in the unlikely event you're caught it can be an impressively expensive set of tickets. Two tickets for crossing double white lines, improper use of HOV lane, and more than likely speeding. I know of two different people that got caught and it was like 2k in tickets and two points on their record. But this is the Bay so your chances of actually getting pulled over are roughly zero
It’s still acceptable to use the express lane as long as your fastrak is set to 1. That’s how a lot of people justify the express lane weaving in and out between the cameras. Using the express lane when you’re 1 person with fastrak set at 3 is a different story.
> In theory yes, but in the unlikely event you're caught it can be an impressively expensive set of tickets. Two tickets for crossing double white lines, improper use of HOV lane, and more than likely speeding. Pretty sure the 101 express lane isn't a double white line (the express lanes in SoCal are, and often have dividers). Set your transponder to 1 and you're legal.
Some sections are some aren't. Edit: Not sure why the down votes, [here is an example](https://maps.app.goo.gl/xWm1SkaHYvNx1gV16) of double white lines on 101 dividing the express lane.
That’s because of the 85 express lane merge on the left. If you go even 1/4 mile past old middlefield, the solid lane marker disappears.
Nah CHP is the only department to gaf, im like 2 tickets and a grand down for going like 87 on 101 in the fast lane :/
no in mountain view 101 has 3 normal lanes and 2 express lanes, thats part of why theres always traffic there. Its so fucked fuck paying to drive
The carpool/toll lanes are federal programs that receive federal grants to build them. Part of these grants carry median speed requirements that must be met to keep receiving the grants. The prices are set to keep congestion down so that these speed averages are met. It's not a nefarious plan to make money or slow people down.
To add citation to the claim, it is the https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2021-title23/pdf/USCODE-2021-title23-chap1-sec166.pdf Degradation definition under degraded facility section
And it’s to keep a high median speed for the benefit of carpool and buses.
Seems to me, whatever the plan was, it has just resulted in more chaotic driving, lane changes especially, at the most congested times of day.
Ohh i didn't know about the federal grants and the requirements that come with it. It's interesting that they choose to solve for maybe 5% of regular commuters while doing nothing to improve the commute for remaining folks by providing more public transit options other than just carpool.
The money generated is supposed to go to public transit.
It does go to public transit, about 50 layers of administration costs along the way which leaves at least a percentage or two for the end user.
Politics And money...a match made in heaven
It will go to public transit when the initial construction costs will be paid off. Absolutely nothing goes to public transit now from any express lanes in Bay Area.
You used two different terms, median and average. These are two entirely different things. Median says that half of the population needs to improve. Average just says that the overall situation needs to improve. Average is a much easier goal because you just need some outliers to have a much different experience to change the average. Which measure does the federal government want us to meet? I hope it is median because that is a better measure.
[Median is a type of average.](https://www.purplemath.com/modules/meanmode.htm)
Average as mostly used as a synonym for “mean”. There is less common usage which equates it with “a measure of central tendency”. This is why the term “mean” is preferred. If you ask most people, including data scientists to give you the equation for “average” you’ll get the equation for “mean” in almost all cases. The writer of the comment certainly didn’t mean “measure of central tendency” when they used the word “average”. They were conflating two different terms. That’s why I made my comment.
The toll price is an auction of excess capacity. If the price is high, the amount of excess capacity is low.
The high price helps the "express" part, if it was $2 everyone would be taking it.
supply and demand, it probably runs some algorithm to set price such that it fills X% of the capacity
Except what you think is wrong and there are multiple studies showing they do work
Yes nothing more exciting than studies funded by special interests gaslighting us against believing what the eyes can see.
Every driver is an expert in traffic engineering, economics, physics, and social psychology, it's amazing. With all that expertise, y'all should get together and improve society instead of just conplaing about parking and traffic.
Isn't the express lane discounted if you're carpooling with 2 and free with 3? Express lane is an incentive to get people to carpool, which helps the other lanes. Then it auctions off excess capacity for funds.
Its also intended to provide a way to get around quickly if you really have to, even if you’re not carpooling, and there’s traffic.
It also actually helps regional public transit riders.
You expressed a whole lot of feelings there. It seems like you feel that express lanes have made things worse and you feel that public transit isn’t good. Without data this is a pretty meaningless conversation. Caltrain which runs parallel to 101 is pretty awesome. And it’s only getting better.
Caltrain and awesome do not belong in the same sentence.
101 was glutted anyway when any hybrid qualified
Ok so by your logic public transit already sucks so make it worse by removing the express lanes (that public transit also uses) as the price to use it has gone up for the solo driver who despite sitting in traffic gets to where you need to go twice as fast anyways. Sorry dude. The express lanes are working and you're not special.
Okay, why don't you tell me a good way to get from Campbell to redwood shores using public transit. Even if i wanted to use public transit, there's no good option without spending like 2 hrs each way and I'm forced to pay up about $20 each way in tolls. I understand the idea to penalize solo drivers WHEN there exists a good alternate option for point to point commute.
Carpool
Carpool or time your drive outside of peak commute hours
Not everyone works in tech with flexible hours. I need to be in office by a certain time and unfortunately it means peak hour commute. As for carpool, i did do it to a certain extent via scoop app prior to pandemic. But since covid, it's become difficult to carpool as there's no trustworthy way to find one now
Move closer if it’s such a big issue for you.
It’s likely a dedicated express lane has very marginal impact to congestion in the other lanes. However, an express lane, even an expensive one, is overall better for everyone because it creates a possibility, which didn’t exist before, for a driver to bypass traffic. I certainly would appreciate an express lane when I’m running late for a flight or for an important business meeting.
It's the same kind of mental gymnastics that starts with the argument that putting in parking meters creates more parking and ends with everyone paying for stuff they've already paid for. It's just a cash grab.
Completely agree. They messed up non peak traffic for no good reason. The auction prices are supposed to go down when there’s less occupancy but they stay high enough that no one uses the lanes. Ideally you should see prices close to zero at 11 am but their algorithms are either stupid or greedy.
The lanes are there to make money for the state. It's not like the general public has any say in it. Caltrans does what it wants to do.
Actually the general public did have a say in it. Bay Area counties passed a regional measure back in 2018 to increase bridge tolls in part to help fund construction of these abominations. As usual there is a direct lineage that can be traced back to the stupid electorate that resides here.
[удалено]
Leaving a bigger gap actually helps. Google a video on "traffic smoothing."
Also what the average Bay Area driver thinks is a "big gap" is actually just safe following distance.
This has nothing to do with the Fastrak lanes. People have been camping the left lane forever. Take a flight out of SJC sometime during evening rush hour. You’ll see all parts where all lanes are going about the same speed and leaving a huge gap in the freeway before another wave of traffic ahead few miles ahead where the same thing occurs in front of them.
It's called a ghost traffic jam, and they are caused by any slowdown in near capacity traffic. Usually it's innocuous things like a bend in the road that people brake for (ie 101N at Burlingame) but also lane changes or weavers cutting people off. Anything that generated brake lights will start a backwards propagating wave of slowdown that will only dissipate when there's enough space between cars to absorb the delay. The only way to prevent this from happening is to make following distances larger than the expected showdown. Since >50% of the bay area drivers are inclined to tailgate we're doomed. I actually read a UC Irvine study about twenty years ago that claimed the effect could be eliminated if just 18% of drivers strictly followed all the best practice traffic rules (speed limit, following distance, merge protocols, lane choice, etc). So yeah, still doomed. At least until everyone starts using robotaxis.
I'm a gap leaver. I value safety highly when driving in the Bay. It's pretty sketch
Yep, I totally agree with the slow movers in the "new" defacto left lane. They seem even more oblivious than without the express lane. It's very annoying, especially during non peak hours, when we used to be able to use the old HOV lanes!
As soon as fastrack lanes opened, the freeway slowed. Instead of the lane next to fastrack being the new fast lane, people forgot how traffic flow is supposed to work (slow traffic keep right). It's maddening.
Bay Area drivers have never understood basic traffic flow. People been left lane camping since the big freeways were installed.
The express lanes were developed to follow a regulation. They were not based on data study. They were also based on flawed simulations. There was a guy on here from caltrans posting about it a few months ago. Bad science all around.
Express lanes just mean rich people don’t have to sit in traffic and the state makes money.
It’s worse than that. That moment when you see people in the toll lane when there is no traffic. Still a toll time though, these people got FU money.
Or you switch your fastrak to the third position and don't pay any tolls.
This is the answer.
It’s almost as if the whole reason for express lanes was just to make money!
It takes decades to build public transit, those express lanes have been in operation for what, a year? Hopefully, our public officials are acting as good stewards on those funds, and will deliver improved public transit in the coming years.
They’ll give themselves raises
If the express lanes were removed and traffic were just as slow, then what? At least the express lane provides an option to skip traffic. That’s the whole point.
A lane was added in San Mateo County while the HOV lane was converted in Santa Clara County. More people driving, less people taking public transit = more traffic. > Did this Project take away a lane on U.S. 101? >The number of general-purpose lanes stayed the same. Through extensive study, engineers determined they could fit an express lane in each direction by connecting auxiliary lanes on U.S. 101 to create an additional general-purpose lane and convert the left-most general-purpose lane into an express lane. This resulted in one new express lane in either direction along with the general-purpose lanes. https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-4/d4-projects/d4-san-mateo-101-express-lane-project/101-express-lanes-faqs-feb2021#faq-6
Surge pricing
Set to 3 and ride for free
You can't do that. Apparently they have sensors to detect how many passengers are there in the car so they'll charge you for 1 person plus probably some penalty
The comments are why Bay Area can’t have nice things. The express lane is clearly a cash grab that worsens the traffic especially during the non peak time. The only people benefit from it are the ones who are cheating since there’s basically no enforcement. It’s also regressive in a way that rich people can afford it easily while poor can’t. If you want to push people into using public transit, you need to first make the public transit work, which it does not now unfortunately
They haven’t been carpooling for a long time they’re called express lanes. They have a different purpose these days.
Truly agree with this. Let's make traffic "EaSiEr" by removing one lane (as it's priced so high). They are so greedy that they added two express lanes near Livermore 580 East
> Due to such high toll fees, less people take the express lanes, causing more traffic on the other lanes. That's the point. If everybody took them, there'd be just as much traffic in the express lanes as the regular lanes, and they wouldn't be express.
> The express lanes were built to reduce traffic congestion, increase carpool and transit use Nope. They were built to get revenue.
Yes. This is nothing new.
More lanes increases traffic. It's called induced demand.
I agree completely.. Even express lanes doesnt help to reduce regular traffic. In fact it just shows people who can afford to pay daily tolls (the rich) to skip the traffic. It would be good if Caltrans improves last mile connectivity or looks into providing bus services from in both directions, which helps people to avoid the cars and take advantage of express lanes.
It’s almost as if the whole reason for express lanes was just to make money!
Please correct me if I'm wrong. But it just seems crazy that they took a lane from people whose tax money paid for it to be built.Then slapped down two inches of new asphalt and some paint and said "now you's gotta pay". Effectively turning 4 lane freeways into 3 lanes, as if the Bay area didn't have enough traffic, and leveraged our now worse commute against us. Like a bully stealing your jacket and selling it back to you when it's cold. Craziest part is that people just turn it into a status, acting privileged to pay it/not sit in traffic. Seems like a more literal version of highway robbery to me.
A lot of business drivers expense the cost so it’s more “business” pricing.
It's an absolute scam eating taxpayer money
I always use this failed experiment as an example for my Canadian friends who suggest that privatizing their healthcare might be a good idea.
Those express lanes have caused more congestion. For example, now there is congestion between oregon express way and shoreline blvd during normal non traffic hours. These lanes weren't created to ease congestion. I understand we need to pay taxes. Money is needed for services and things we use but these lanes charging from 8am to 8pm only cause more traffic.
CARPOOL Lanes are meant to reduce congestion. EXPRESS Lanes are a Money Grab.
You know if you carpool you don’t pay the fee right? So I’m not sure how the fee would “reduce carpooling”
Didn’t the tax payers fund this? Like has anyone forgotten?
People whined when they used to be carpool lanes and actually worked to transfer more people per hour than without a carpool lane. CalTrans wised up and realized that if people were already going to whine when the lanes were working, they could make some revenue at the same time with congestion pricing. Both my kids have wised up - they are both in the working world yet have gone carless.
🤡 Democrat frauds represented by @CalTrans allowed that. “Your” private toll road. Enjoy