High-occupancy vehicle lane
HOV lanes are normally introduced to increase average vehicle occupancy and persons traveling with the goal of reducing traffic congestion and air pollution.
[11] The second freeway HOV facility, which opened in 1970, was the contraflow bus lane on the Lincoln Tunnel Approach and Helix in Hudson County, New Jersey.
[12] The first permanent HOV facility in California was the bypass lane at the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge toll plaza, opened to the public in April 1970.
[7] The El Monte Busway (I-10 / San Bernardino Freeway) in Los Angeles was initially only available for buses when it opened in 1973.
[14] Beginning in the 1970s, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration recognized the advantages of exclusive bus lanes and encouraged their funding.
In the 1970s the FHWA began to allow state highway agencies to spend federal funds on HOV lanes.
[8] As a result of the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, interest in ridesharing picked up, and states began experimenting with HOV lanes.
ISTEA also provided that under the Interstate Maintenance Program, only HOV projects would receive the 90% federal matching ratio formerly available for the addition of general purpose lanes.
[6] On October 24, 2023, Michigan opened its first-ever HOV lanes on a portion of I-75 in Oakland County from South Boulevard in Bloomfield Township to 12 Mile Road in Madison Heights as part of a freeway modernization project.
The main reason for this is that, in general, European cities have better public transport services and fewer high-capacity multi-lane urban motorways than do the U.S. and Canada.
[citation needed] However, at around 1.3 persons per vehicle, average car occupancy is relatively low in most European cities.
The facility did not attract enough users to overcome public criticism and was converted to a reversible lane open to general traffic after the judge in a legal test case ruled that Dutch traffic law lacked the concept of a car pool and thus that the principle of equality was violated.
[27] There is a T2 transit lane in Tamaki Drive, in a short stretch between Okahu Bay Reserve and downtown Auckland.
All lanes of a 10 miles (16 km) section of the Interstate 66 in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., are treated as an HOV during the rush hour in the primary direction of flow.
A Texas Transportation Institute study found that HOV lanes lacking barrier separations caused a 50% increase in injury crashes.
Tolls change throughout the day according to real-time traffic conditions, which is intended to manage the number of cars in the lanes to maintain good journey times.
Some systems use RFID transmitters to monitor entry and exiting of the lane and charge drivers depending on demand.
[44][45] Qualification for HOV status varies by scheme, but the following vehicles may be included: New York City HOV lane codes prior to 2008 did not allow motorcycles leading to ticketing of motorcycle drivers and complaints from the American Motorcyclist Association, but have since been revised to comply with the federal regulations listed above.
[50][53][54] In some jurisdictions such as Ontario, Canada, taxicabs and airport limousines are allowed to use HOV lanes even when no passenger is present because that vehicle "will be able return to duty faster after dropping off a fare or arrive sooner to pick up a fare, thereby moving more people to their destinations in fewer vehicles".
[55] In Virginia, the San Francisco Bay Area, Houston, and other HOV lane locations, commuters form sluglines where drivers pick up one or more passengers from a designated "casual carpool" or "slug lines" to drive on HOV lanes; the driver pulls over near the sluglines and shouts out their destination, and people in the line going to that destination enter the car on a first-come, first-served basis.
[57] Following the introduction of HOVs, some drivers placed inflatable dolls in the passenger seat, a practice that persists today, even though it is now illegal.
[58] In the United States, law enforcement officials have documented a variety of methods used by drivers in attempts to circumvent HOV occupancy rules: In early 2006, an Arizona woman asserted that she had been improperly ticketed for using the HOV lane because the unborn child she was carrying in her womb justified her use of the lane, while noting that Arizona traffic laws do not define what constitutes a person.
[59] Likewise, in California, in order to use HOV lanes, there must be two (or, if posted, three) separate individuals occupying seats in a vehicle, and an unborn child does not count towards this requirement.
[61] In February 2010, a 61-year-old woman tried to pass off a life-sized mannequin as a passenger in order to use the HOV lane in New York State.
A police officer on a routine HOV patrol became suspicious when he noticed that the so-called passenger was wearing sunglasses and using the visor on a cloudy morning.
When the officer approached the vehicle, he discovered that the "passenger" was, in fact, a mannequin wearing lipstick, designer shades, a full-length wig, and a blue sweater.
"[64] In March 2015, a motorist tried to use a cardboard cutout of actor Jonathan Goldsmith to access an HOV lane in Fife, Washington.
[67] HOV lanes are also an effective way to manage traffic after natural disasters, as seen in New York City after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012.
Reportedly, the situation caused people stay in unemployment for doing so, increased congestion, and let parents profit from their babies.
