[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I worked at the Pentagon for 5 years in the 90s and the HOV lanes were a lifesaver. I carpooled for a couple of years, and then when the carpool died, I "slugged." Slugging is common in Northern VA. You stand at the bus stop in a line, and cars that need more riders for the HOV pick you up at no charge. I did it three years and it worked like a charm. Absent the HOV lanes, commuting would have doubled my one hour commute.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

As a woman, I cannot imagine getting into a stranger's car.

[presidio9]

HOV lanes are not the ultimate solution. This president has dropped the ball on funding alternative transportation research. It's the 21st century. Where the hell is my jet pack?

[VeniVidiVici]

Slugging is common in Northern VA. You stand at the bus stop in a line, and cars that need more riders for the HOV pick you up at no charge

Wow! What a great idea!

[lentulusgracchus]

Absent the HOV lanes, commuting would have doubled my one hour commute.

HOV lanes are infrastructure rationing. Once you concede the principle that public roadways are free for all to use, you've made yourself the plaything of the power junkies and policy wonks.

What do you do when they jack up the HOV requirement to 4+, then 6+, then 21+ (buses only!)? You're screwed. You've let your public servants take away

• Your right to travel
• Your right to go out of your house (since they "own" all the streets)
• Your right to get a living
• Your right to go shopping, or anywhere else.

HOV lanes will wind up being the big-shots-only lanes that Hedrick Smith described in his book The Russians.

Build the roads, stop playing games. Double-deck them if need be. Build them, stop trying to screw the public. And quit trying to pump up downtown real-estate values artificially by luring all the big employers downtown with tax abatements.

HOV lanes are all about killing commuting so that people will be forced to move back into the cities -- so their paychecks can be recycled in the form of sky-high rents. Pres. Bush is trying to help the Old Money replicate the Tokyo labor-cost recycling model here in America -- turning the big cities into company towns. Great for the big-rich stockholders and well-heeled managers, high-rent tenement hell for their employees.

[Rb ver. 2.0]

"Slugging is common in Northern VA. You stand at the bus stop in a line, and cars that need more riders for the HOV pick you up at no charge."

Thanks for the info!

[muawiyah]

I did the "slugline" for over 15 years.

The HOV lane on I395/95 in Northern Virginia carries more people than the regular lanes.

Sometimes it even carries more cars.

HOV is a very good way to segregate safe drivers from bad drivers too.

[Boiler Plate]

Carpooling only works for Gov employees as they are just about the only ones that can work their day into a 8 tp 5 schedule.