I hope this time the link is live.

Web Link

So carpool users without FastTrack have to do nothing to use the lane.

Carpool users with FastTrack have to remember to use their tinfoil hat.

Non carpool users with FastTrack get charged.

Non carpool users without FastTrack get terminated by SkyNet for non-compliance.

What could go wrong?

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More 40 MPH differential and unsafe lane changing. Stupidity ad absurdum.

Later today I am going to catch a train to Redwood City at a cost of $4.25 to enable me to ride with someone in the carpool lane to Milpitas to get them there in reasonable amount of time for a 6.30 appointment while I hang around aimlessly until they finish and we can come back to Palo Alto.

OF course your all for having SUVs and land yatchs sucking up gas so YOU can sit in your PPD and rule the world from that BEAST and that 1000 foot BerlinWall freeway

Here is Gary Richards update on his experience yesterday.

Web Link

There is always a period of adjusting to new rules but I expect that drivers and Caltrans will make adjustments and shortly the leaning curve problems will disappear.

The toll lane idea has three potential benefits.

One, it allows drivers to pay for a faster drive and frees up space in the "free" lanes for other drivers.

Two, the revenue will be a help to financing highway improvements.

Three, the early experiments will provide valuable information about usage, fares, and congestion relief. If the early experiments don't work, I would hope that future toll lanes might be delayed or redesigned.

I am "rich", because my family income is $270,000. Of course, my wife and I worked it from the bottom, raised three kids, took exactly zero vactions for 15 years, sweated the payroll, etc.

I like the idea, because we can travel from Orinda to our business in San Jose more quickly. We earned the privilege, and we are willing, and able, to pay the price. That's the American way!

Oh, btw, if the "Bush" tax cuts are reversed, we WILL be laying off workers. We sacrificed to produce wealth for ourselves, not to give it back to the government.

I doubt seriously the revenue from toll lanes will come close to their cost and to the opportunity to expand service to all. Remember when the Dumbarton bridge was in private operation? One man per shift in the center kiosk collected tolls both directions, opened the bridge for boats and fished through a hole in the floor for flounder he sold for a buck a pound. The State took over, and the minimum crew was six. And no more flounders.