Governor Blagojevich Wants You To Carpool
By Marcus Gilmer in News on Oct 15, 2008 4:00PM
In an effort to help cut emissions, Governor Blagojevich plans to introduce "Green Lanes" for the Illinois Tollway. Essentially "express lanes," these new lanes will be for drivers of hybrid vehicles and car-poolers. The lanes would be placed in some of the busier segments of Tollway roads, thus cutting down on congestion and emissions from the constant stop-and-go of gas-brake-gas-brake pedal pumping. Carpool lanes are not a new concept; if anything, Illinois is late to the party as cities nationwide have been implementing similar programs for years. Cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Nashville have HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes. Of course, Chicago looked at the idea of adding the lanes to the Stevenson in '94, but Mayor Daley squashed that idea. Still, Blago's proposal at least has the "green" element, which is, we admit, not a bad idea.
And Blago's proposal has another twist. Unlike those other HOV lanes around the country, Blago's proposal would allow solo drivers to use the "Green Lanes" - but for a price. Under the proposal, these solo drivers would pay a higher-than-standard toll to cruise in the "free-flow" lanes. Blago spoke with Spike O'Dell and told him, "This will have an effect on really getting cars off the highways, and our estimate is there will be 5,700 fewer cars (daily) on the highways when these lanes are operating...You can get in that lane if you have one other person, who's a real person, not a blow-up doll."
In theory, this sounds great. But how would it be fully enforced? Would traffic cameras be used to snap photos of violators? How would the automatic I-Pass system know the difference between a car full of four people and a car with a single, lonely, Roy Orbison sing-a-long driver? Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero says that certain technology can use heat sensors to count the number of car occupants, but you'll forgive us if we remain skeptical (we've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and we know how wrong this shit can go). Also, if everyone is allowed to drive the carpool lanes anyway and those lanes won't be separated by a barrier (as Blago claims) then will this really cut down on congestion? That's going to have be one hell of a premium toll.