Express lanes are a boon for carpoolers, cheaters, and people willing to pay. But there’s little evidence they are reducing traffic for others in the Bay Area.
San Francisco Bay Area motorists are seeing a new span of toll-based express lanes open on Highway 101 from Whipple Avenue in Redwood City to I-380 in South San Francisco on Friday.
But the latest batch of express lanes will also serve as a key testing ground for the Bay Area’s expanding network of toll roads crisscrossing the region, which are not only meant to provide faster commutes for people willing to pay but also meant to reduce traffic congestion for all drivers by encouraging carpools.
Traffic maps provided by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which runs the I-880 express lanes that opened in 2020, show subtle shifts in congestion but little major impact on traffic jams outside the express lanes. On northbound I-880, cars regularly slow to a crawl in the afternoon around Whipple Road, the same area where traffic upended commutes in 2019.
“The whole system is just operating more efficiently,” said John Goodwin, a spokesperson for MTC. “Does that mean that the whole system is operating in free flow conditions? No, it doesn’t.”One of the central benefits of express lanes is supposed to that they incentivize carpoolers, thereby taking vehicles off the roads and freeing up traffic for everybody. Cars with at least three people ride for free and vehicles carrying two people get a 50% discount.
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