[HN Gopher] Toll signs on 101 report your transponder setting
___________________________________________________________________
Toll signs on 101 report your transponder setting
Author : zdw
Score : 187 points
Date : 2022-03-10 15:13 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rachelbythebay.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (rachelbythebay.com)
| [deleted]
| spike021 wrote:
| I've been really frustrated by this change, especially on 237. I
| used to drive in the faster lane on weekdays around noon to get
| around slower traffic by myself because that was legal. Now I'd
| need to pay for the privilege.
|
| If I were confident that at least the money would go to road
| surface maintenance, I'd be partially okay with it. But I'm not,
| so this is even more ridiculous.
|
| 101 has some incredibly bad road surface stretches. 237 is 2 or 3
| lanes for most stretches, and periodically there will be clusters
| of cars going 5-10mph under the limit and now I can't pass them
| unless I want to pay a Fastrak fee.
|
| Mind-boggling, except that they know people here can "afford" it
| so they think it gives them free-reign to charge.
| jxramos wrote:
| I think the difference is that the 101 is a state highway, 237
| is a county highway.
| classichasclass wrote:
| CA 237 is a state highway.
| https://cahighways.org/ROUTE237.html
|
| US 101 in that stretch is actually part of the National
| Highway System and gets federal funding, though notionally
| all US highways are state highways with a national grid
| number.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| The main advantage of pay lanes is that they're fast, and can
| handle a lot of traffic.
|
| With a price, supply and demand can meet where traffic isn't
| jammed into standstill, and everyone is better off.
|
| Sure, it would make sense for the money to go to road
| maintenance, but to me that's a minor issue.
| cbhl wrote:
| I remember asking about this at one of the community meetings
| in Redwood City for the San Mateo 101 Express Lanes project.
| Projections at the time showed a clear trend in increased car
| traffic on the 101, and thus even HOV lanes would have the same
| traffic jams as the regular lanes. They couldn't even keep the
| express lanes as HOV 2+; they needed to change it to 3+ in
| order to ensure a minimum travel speed of 35mph during rush
| hour.
|
| That said I do find it amusing that if you drive up the I-5 up
| to Oregon, people suddenly know to keep the left lane clear as
| a passing lane as soon as you cross into Oregon. (But cross
| back into California and the _exact same cars_ in your pack
| will suddenly coast slowly in the leftmost lane.)
| pishpash wrote:
| Maybe they ticket that behavior in Oregon?
| downrightmike wrote:
| When stuck in between and immovable object and an unstoppable
| force, yield. IE stop driving so much. I've cut my driving down
| 90% and I am happier, its crazy how driving makes people upset.
| spike021 wrote:
| So I can take a train with my dog up the 280 corridor?
|
| Ah, right. Caltrain is only on the inside, 101 corridor;
| also, last I checked it doesn't allow non-service animals.
| So...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Not everyone has that luxury. What if you are not rich enough
| to live near work or your kids school?
|
| Just walk/bike/etc. is a form let them eat cake.
| ripper1138 wrote:
| It does seem like they are slowly resurfacing 101. Some
| sections have a mix of old/new like some lanes have been
| resurfaced recently. But who knows if that's paid for by fast
| lane tolls or not.
| fragmede wrote:
| There's been heavy traffic around 11pm on weekdays for said
| resurfacing.
| spike021 wrote:
| I bet they still haven't figured out a fix for the area
| around the Old Oakland Rd. exit/overpass. IIRC the water
| table is technically above the road, so any time there's rain
| that section floods; in addition to that, it also constantly
| has terrible potholes and they appear almost as quickly as
| some are fixed.
| Cerium wrote:
| A few days ago this was mentioned (yet again) on the
| Mercury News column "Roadshow" [1]. The column explained
| that Caltrans did offer to to fix it, but the change was
| rejected about 30 years ago.
|
| [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/03/03/flooding-on-
| highway-1...
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Congestion pricing is one of those policies that can greatly
| benefit society, but causes so much anger that it's very hard to
| implement.
| brimble wrote:
| I think it bothers people when they're not getting to choose
| when or where they drive, which is much of the time (commute,
| taking kids to school, that kind of thing). It _feels_ like
| being punished for decisions other people made.
| autoexec wrote:
| I don't think punishing people for wanting to get somewhere is
| a benefit for society. Congestion is a failure of the
| infrastructure to efficiently meet demand, not the fault of
| people for simply wanting things when others also want them.
|
| Instead of punishing individuals who already suffer by being
| stuck using ineffective systems that can't handle the load, a
| far better solution would be updating those systems or
| replacing them with something that can adequately handle the
| traffic at its peak.
| bduerst wrote:
| The difference in the costs of the solutions you're talking
| about are to the order of many magnitudes.
|
| Congestion pricing is a quick fix that is not a punishment,
| because everyone would be waiting anyways.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Certainly, we should upgrade our infrastructure to improve
| capacity. Due to induced demand, there will still be traffic
| at peak times. Congestion pricing can shape demand to improve
| utilization and reduce travel times, which improves the ROI
| of those investments.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| I recently rented a vehicle on Turo in CA for three days and
| racked up maybe three toll charges - even though I followed the
| law and did my best to avoid HOV lanes when I didn't have enough
| occupants.
|
| I was greeted the following month with a *$320* ticket. The fees
| themselves totalled to no more than $12 which I would've been
| totally okay paying, but the overage fee for non-payment (which
| how was I supposed to know the owner wasn't watching the records
| for his vehicle - per Turo rules?) were over *$100 per charge*.
| To call this predatory is an understatement. Also, a word of
| warning to anyone using Turo, they usually indicate that "the
| driver is liable for all toll charges while driving the vehicle"
| which can screw you if you don't confirm in writing with the
| owner if they're watching toll records. Always settle via the
| Turo app, many owners will try to settle with you directly and
| try to force you to pay the full fee. Fortunately, I was able to
| get slightly less ripped off and pay 40% of the charge by
| settling through the Turo app.
|
| I love CA and a lot of my friends live there, but goodness are
| they chalking up reasons for me to never live there again.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| I don't use Turo anymore, no point at all.
|
| Back in the day Turo was mostly people with somewhat
| interesting cars who wanted to share them, and rental agencies
| had nothing interesting, and the pricing was reasonable.
|
| -
|
| Now a $60 a day car can come out to more than a $100 a day car
| because of extended insurance for specific models, Turo fees,
| weird discount structures, massive deposits (One $70 a day car
| had an $700 deposit).
|
| And there's no way to actually account for that in searching,
| the estimated price never includes any of this. So you're left
| to randomly click around and "guess" which cars don't all
| belong to the same guy tacking on a massive deposit, or asking
| for some money on the side.
|
| It all just feels incredibly sleazy, and wreaks of Turo's model
| essentially failing since private owners care more about their
| cars than an agency, and they likely had to deal with a ton
| more claims.
|
| There are also a ton of deeply unsafe cars on there now,
| especially older non-enthusiast cars. Rental agencies might not
| be the best about safety, but they also won't keep a 100k mile
| structurally rusted out econobox laying around...
|
| -
|
| I just went through that last week and decided to go with Sixt.
| I got a rental "A5 or similar" (convertible 4 series was the
| option I took at the counter), and for 12 dollars a day I get
| unlimited tolls in CA.
| drstewart wrote:
| >Back in the day Turo was mostly people with somewhat
| interesting cars who wanted to share them, and rental
| agencies had nothing interesting, and the pricing was
| reasonable.
|
| >Now a $60 a day car can come out to more than a $100 a day
| car because of extended insurance for specific models, Turo
| fees, weird discount structures, massive deposits
|
| This honestly feels like the story of every gig economy
| service out there (Airbnb, Turo, etc). They were unique and
| interesting and well worth the cost versus traditional
| competitors at one point. Now they're at the point where I'm
| back to cross-shopping the traditional options (hotels / car
| agencies / etc) first.
| djrogers wrote:
| 100k miles is 'deeply unsafe'? You can't evaluate structural
| rust in a photo, so if you're deciding safety based on
| mileage you have a very unreal sense of safe vs unsafe.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It says "100k mile structurally rusted out" is deeply
| unsafe. Did we read the same comment?
| BoorishBears wrote:
| That's not what I wrote, but you're certainly free to
| misread my sentence and go off on a strawman.
|
| https://youtu.be/hQlrGGJodgQ
|
| 100k miles doesn't make it unsafe, the rust does. 100k
| miles is mentioned because a 50k mile car is less likely to
| have potential critical rust, and rental companies are
| selling cars at 50k miles on average.
|
| Of course now this is the part where you say 50k mile cars
| can have rust too! They sure can, but where is rust worse,
| at 50k miles or after an additional 50k miles?
|
| -
|
| It's not just rust either, as miles tick up there's plenty
| of maintenance that's supposed to be done that private
| renters making a buck won't.
|
| Your rental agency isn't going to pick up a high milage 3
| series that's one good highway trip away from shredding its
| serpentine belt because no one ever fixed a single oil leak
| it had...
|
| -
|
| They're also not going to do what my Turo renter did in
| Miami:
|
| Give you a car with a brake light and clear metal on metal
| sounds and tell you "oh, that's ok, the sensor is just
| broken"
| wcfields wrote:
| I've never had an unsafe car persay, but when working with
| a small budget you'll end up with a high-mileage 2010
| Toyota Corolla. (Turo says "Cars that have more than
| 130,000 mi/200,000 km may remain listed as long as they're
| in excellent condition") [1]
|
| What I've noticed on Turo is now there's a large mix of
| 'big' players: Unregulated car rental biz that have 10+
| beaters of Echos/Sparks/Minis/Focus, or, a buy-here/pay-
| here used car dealership that's renting out everything on
| the lot.
|
| [1] https://support.turo.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/203991940-Vehicle...
| RandallBrown wrote:
| I used Turo for the first time on a trip to Salt Lake City
| recently to go skiing. I wanted something with 4WD in case it
| snowed. Turo was hundreds of dollars cheaper than any of the
| airport rentals.
|
| It seemed like most of the rentals there were people running
| their own rental companies (fleets of 4 or 5 cars). It worked
| really well for us.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Also great for Colorado ski trips when the Traction Law is
| in effect. Normal rental agencies will never guarantee a
| compliant reservation (unless you spend triple to rent a
| vehicle class you can reasonably expect to comply) but the
| filters on Turo make it simple. The insurance situation is
| a little dicey though; apparently only a handful of
| insurance policies (thru insurance agencies and credit card
| benefits) cover P2P rentals, maybe like 25% of them or so.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| _but goodness are they chalking up reasons for me to never live
| in there again_
|
| California doesn't set Turo's toll policies, and many states
| have implemented automated tolling, so your list of states to
| live in in going to get smaller and smaller.
|
| I think the biggest problem with automated tolling is that
| every state has their own independent system -- the federal
| government should enforce one standard, so I can use my toll
| reader on any toll road in the country.
|
| Oh hey, I was looking to see if there was a multi-state toll
| tag and it sounds like the US government did pass a law
| requiring interoperability, but this linked website doesn't
| appear to sell this "nationalpass", so I don't know what
| happened to the law:
|
| https://www.nationalpass.net/
|
| Toll Interoperability by 2016
|
| H.R.4348 - MAP-21
|
| In 2012, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the
| 21st Century Act (MAP-21) to ease the burden of tolled
| interstate travel by providing motorists the convenience of a
| single toll tag and account.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Ah yes, MAP-21. It passed a requirement that all electronic
| toll systems become interoperable by 2016, but without any
| penalty for failure or money inducements to succeed, so
| nothing happened.
|
| Well, that's not quite true. There are a couple of major
| consortia of electronic toll systems in the US. The largest
| consortium is the E-ZPass system, which started out with a
| cooperation in the NYC area and grew to encompass basically
| everything from Illinois to Virginia to Maine by the time
| MAP-21 passed. Since it was the largest, in terms of number
| of systems implemented, their position was more or less that
| everyone would implement compatibility with E-ZPass. North
| Carolina, Minnesota, Florida (and I believe Kentucky) added
| compatibility to E-ZPass post-2012.
|
| The other three consortia are California (interoperable with
| no one else, because California I guess), the
| Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas group, and the Georgia/North
| Carolina/Florida interoperability region (which will be fully
| subsumed by E-ZPass once Georgia's system becomes
| interoperable, apparently later this year). There's still a
| couple of systems that interoperate with nobody else as well.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| > every state has their own independent system -- the federal
| government should enforce one standard, so I can use my toll
| reader on any toll road in the country.
|
| My EZ-Pass works in 19 states.
| brewdad wrote:
| And I have a transponder for the Seattle area that I use
| about 3-5 times a year. I don't live in Washington but I do
| visit regularly. It doesn't work anywhere else but when I
| need it, I need it. A nationwide standard really is needed.
| mindslight wrote:
| The biggest problem with automated tolling is there is no law
| restricting how rental companies can use those tolls against
| you. I don't know the current state of things, but there used
| to be this thing where rental companies would charge you say
| a $30 convenience fee simply for passing on a $3 toll charge.
| The consent-fiction was to bring your own toll transponder
| and cross your fingers it worked or avoid toll roads or
| whatever.
|
| This of course is the shape of much corruption in the US -
| the government mandates some thing but with no restrictions
| on its abuse, and then private companies leverage that
| mandate to screw you (see also: DL/SSN numbers). What needs
| to happen is any such mandates need to be designed as
| complete systems that regulate all constructive behavior,
| rather than mere partial solutions that complexity gets built
| on top of.
| bbarn wrote:
| I don't think interstate highways should be tolled, period.
| They were paid for decades ago, and maintenance should be
| covered by the existing gas tax. I am not opposed to
| convenience highways in metro areas being tolled, as long as
| there is a non-toll option that is reasonably similar in non-
| rush hour times. As it stands the major Chicago to New York
| and New York to DC routes are tolls almost the entire way.
| The nation paid for those routes, and now pays to use them as
| well.
| Bud wrote:
| This seems like a reasonable argument, but in this case
| we're talking about 101, which is not an interstate
| highway.
| brewdad wrote:
| It's a federal highway that predates the interstate
| system. It was still built using federal funds, so the
| argument stands.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| It should definitely be tolled, but for a different reason.
| The only effective way to control congestion is to put a
| price on it, so the tolls should kick in iff there is heavy
| traffic.
| outworlder wrote:
| > The only effective way to control congestion is to put
| a price on it
|
| The actual effective way is to provide alternative
| transportation options.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| Right, I think most people on HN get that. This was a
| thread about highway tolls.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true, just providing alternative
| transportation doesn't by itself control congestion--
| London has good alternative transportation options, but
| also has a PS15 congestion charge (i.e. toll) to limit
| traffic during peak hours.
|
| If the roads are free to use and not congested, many
| people will use them until the cost or inconvenience of
| using the road is greater than the alternative
| transportation. (that's not true of everyone, of course,
| some will use alternative transportation even at greater
| cost or inconvenience)
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| The other option is reduce the entrances/exits in metro
| areas so that most traffic on metro interstates is no
| longer traffic that is going from one area of the metro
| to another area.
|
| The metro areas should be responsible for handling intra-
| metro traffic, and that traffic should stay away from
| interstates.
| devilbunny wrote:
| > As it stands the major Chicago to New York and New York
| to DC routes are tolls almost the entire way. The nation
| paid for those routes, and now pays to use them as well.
|
| Actually, no, the nation did not pay for those. The NJ, PA,
| OH, IN, and IL toll roads you're talking about were built
| with state-issued bonds, not Interstate money, because
| they're older than the Interstate laws. They got Interstate
| numbers later, purely as a matter of convenience for
| travelers trying to get from A to B. The only federally-
| funded Interstate that I know of that is allowed to charge
| tolls is the WV Turnpike, and that only because it was so
| horrifically expensive to build and yet was so valuable to
| the nation as an artery.
|
| The Richmond-Petersburg Turnpike is another such road (I-95
| now), but tolls were removed when I-295 bypassing the area
| was built. There are other state-built toll roads in
| greater Richmond that continue to be tolled. The Virginia
| Beach Expressway was tolled until its initial bonds were
| paid off. On both roads, you can still fairly easily see
| where the booths were.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Is that just Turo screwing you over?
|
| In SoCal as long as you have a fastrack account associated with
| the vehicle/license plate even if you have no transponder your
| account still gets charged the normal fee + a small additional
| courtesy fee. I believe the additional fee might be 6$ which
| does not seem ridiculous (to me at least).
|
| To me this more just sounds like the owner of that vehicle is
| an idiot and never registered the plate with fastrack.
| nextstep wrote:
| It's incredible the lengths to which the US will go to duct tape
| together their 1950's era, individual-rider transportation
| system. The solution is mass transit, but this offends the
| entrenched industries (auto companies and adjacent) that control
| the government so you get nonsense like this.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| Ough, this touches a nerve. The Fastrak system is atrocious and I
| have been battling it for years. Let me count the ways:
|
| - They took my CC number and just kept replenishing $25 every so
| often even though it had a big balance already. Thankfully my
| card expired so now I'm sloooowly (don't drive much anymore)
| working my way through the $100+ credit on my account.
|
| - It is so hard to check and contest charges. I had to sent in my
| complaint with snail mail and IIRC it took a month before I got a
| reply back that requested information that I already wrote in the
| first letter doesn't apply. I gave up at this point.
|
| - There is _NO_ way to check the transponder short of just using
| it and waiting a week for the event to show up on the bill. My
| windshield was apparently blocking radio transmissions (I know
| why, don't tell me) and experimenting with a different location
| has a crazy long cycle time due to the above. There days I guess
| I could do it with a car driving behind me reading what the sign
| say, but that only works when there isn't much traffic.
|
| I hate Fastrak.
| vostrocity wrote:
| FasTrak has actually been surprisingly nice for me.
|
| I love the ability to add cars by license plate to an account,
| and being able to specify exactly when coverage starts and ends
| down to minute precision. Renting a car? You can add the plate
| to your account for just the period you're renting so you don't
| pay the rental company fees.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I didnt know they added that - before you could just add a
| car or remove. Specifying when it starts and ends sounds like
| a nice upgrade
| MisterTea wrote:
| In the northeast we have E-ZPass which is equally evil.
|
| - They too have a stupidly weird replenishment algorithm where
| it takes what feels like weeks to adjust. Then out of nowhere,
| it will increase many times even if you only increased travel
| temporarily. It went from maintaining a $26 balance to $180
| which will take forever to use.
|
| - "It is so hard to check and contest charges." - We used to
| have a business with two delivery vans with E-ZPass. We
| received a very high bill and it was full of "toll violation"
| charges which were 2 or 3 dollars that accompanied nearly every
| toll, some with two violations. I called them to inquire what
| these violation were and they flat out told me "we dont know."
| I forget the details but we wound up having to pay though the
| charges never appeared again. I feel like they robbed us using
| a computer glitch.
|
| - "There is _NO_ way to check the transponder" - Yup. This is
| really frustrating because Ive gone on trips where the vehicle
| was supposedly on the account but the tag wasn't registering at
| the NJ tolls on I95 during a road trip. So I got a bunch of
| unpaid toll violations I had to manually resolve through their
| awful web portal. I then check the account and find the vehicle
| was not on the account - huh? I am sure I added it. Who
| knows...
|
| I hate E-ZPass.
| amysox wrote:
| Here around Denver, we have the ExpressToll system, which
| started out as the electronic billing system for E-470 (the
| toll-only highway that runs around the eastern Denver metro
| area), but then got adapted to the I-25 express lanes, and
| then to HOT lanes carved out of existing freeways (US-36 and
| northern I-25 first, then C-470, I-70 through part of the
| mountains, and more coming soon). They use either a basic
| RFID sticker that always charges the toll, or a switchable
| pass with two positions. One bad thing: "high occupancy," for
| which you can use the "free" position on the switch, requires
| 3 occupants now, not just 2.
|
| The _other_ toll-only highway, the Northwest Parkway, has its
| own pass system (GO PASS), but ExpressToll is compatible with
| it as well.
|
| I have the sticker for my car; it's always seemed to work OK
| for me.
| Arainach wrote:
| It's a symptom of contracting everything out to the lowest
| bidder.
|
| In Washington State who has the "Good to Go" system. Its
| deployment has been full of quirks, my favorite of which was
| that if your balance ever went negative (say you had it set
| up to replenish at $5 but got a $10 toll) the system would
| refuse to charge you (even when you had a payment method on
| file or went to their website) and you had to call in and
| talk to a human to fix it.
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| First, they definitely don't contract to the lowest bidder.
|
| Second, every tolling system is different. Sometimes the
| accounting (often called the back office system) is
| contracted out, sometimes it is performed in-house by the
| tolling agency.
|
| Source: I work for one of the better quality contractors.
| Arainach wrote:
| If they don't contract to the lowest bidder, they
| certainly feel like they're contracting to a grifter who
| certainly subcontracts to them.
|
| Between:
|
| * The implementation delays
| https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2012/jul/19/wsdot-
| reaches-...
|
| * The payment issues
| https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
| news/transportation/sta...
|
| * The customer support issues
|
| * the sensor issues (admittedly those _may_ be on the
| state and not ETC /ETAN, unclear)
|
| and more the state abandoned its contract with ETC in
| favor of one with ETAN, which took the system offline for
| two weeks to switch over and admittedly hasn't been much
| better (https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-
| news/transportation/wsd...).
|
| God forbid we let the state hire a few local SWEs
| (Seattle doesn't have any of those) to write and maintain
| a system instead of paying $30M every few years plus a
| cut of tolls to whatever Texas contractor gave the most
| perks to a WSDOT exec.
| coreyp_1 wrote:
| I don't know anything about that particular case, and I
| would have agreed with you about the "few local SWEs",
| until I saw this side of the business. You would be
| floored by the amount of work and hoops that you have to
| jump through, and that's well before the SLAs and KPIs.
| Take a wild guess how much it costs to hoist, populate,
| and maintain a gantry with the associated sensors,
| cameras, etc. That's in the price tag, too. The SWEs
| aren't doing that work! The SWEs definitely aren't
| driving the test vehicles at the test track.
|
| There's a good reason that the systems themselves cost so
| much money. Heck, it costs an arm and a leg just for the
| routine maintenance permits! The CI/CD, security, data
| persistence, data provenance, latency, and agency interop
| requirements are absolutely insane. Trust me, it's more
| than just a few SWE can handle.
|
| Lastly, it's definitely not about any under-the-table
| dealings. There's just a huge amount of work! When
| deciding to whom to award the contract, they do
| background checks on key company people, look at past
| contracts, etc.
|
| That's the reality of the situation.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| Whoever the new provider is (I think there was a lot of
| pushback on the initial implementation) is far better.
|
| They introduced "Pay as You Go" (direct tolling) so you
| don't need to hold a balance anymore. You'll basically just
| have a negative balance until they charge your card twice a
| month. Has surprisingly actually worked for me, and
| confirms that accounts _can_ go negative now. I can choose
| to add funds or just wait for the charge to go through.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The best tolling experience I had was in Canada. Simply got
| a bill mailed to me in the US based on license plate.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| The catch is that Canadian e-tolls are run by a private,
| foreign company which has been handed over PII for
| Americans by their own government.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is a political problem though, which seem easier to
| rectify than a technical problem.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Does that not work pretty much the same everywhere? On
| the rare occasion that I drive across the SR520 bridge
| across Lake Washington, they have no problem recognizing
| my Oregon plate and sending me a bill. Same when I drove
| through the Bay Area. Took them a couple weeks.
| brewdad wrote:
| It does work pretty much everywhere, the catch is that
| some places will only bill you the toll amount. Other
| places will bill the toll plus a small convenience fee.
| Others will bill the toll and a huge penalty on top. Are
| you confident which jurisdiction you are traveling
| though? Has it changed since the last time you visited?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| In northeast US, you get mailed a $50+ fine on top of the
| toll for not having an EZ Pass transponder.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| That's harsh. Do they have tollbooths for visitors, then?
| Seems like the places I've been on the west coast with
| toll roads have ditched the actual toll booths and just
| use license plate recognition for billing cars without a
| pass. No penalty, but you get a discount if you have a
| pass.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| It depends on the issuing authority. I never had problems
| with excessive billing from the Thruway authority while
| mostly using it for NYC area tolls.
|
| I had a motorcycle EZpass die after four years and I didn't
| know about it for nearly a year because many of the NJ
| barriers don't give feedback on the status. Looking back
| through the records I could see that I rarely got billed from
| a license plate read so I optimized my lane positioning.
| the_svd_doctor wrote:
| Don't transactions (should) show up in your online account
| pretty much instant? I thought they did for me.
|
| I also hate fastrack and the "fast lanes". Only good thing is
| they send you the transponder pretty much for free :)
| vostrocity wrote:
| I bought a new car and I couldn't figure out if my license
| plate has the digit '0' or the letter 'O', so I added both
| versions to my FasTrak to check which license plate would get
| charged. It took 4 days after crossing the toll to finally
| see the charge on my account.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| I was about to say "there is no letter O, only number 0"
| but Wikipedia [0] mentions that California does have both.
| You can deduce which character it is based on position:
|
| > California currently only uses I, O, and Q in between two
| other letters, for example "1AQA000".[citation needed]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_license_pla
| te_de...
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| They (the Fastrack rep) literally told me to wait for days.
| In my experience there's at least a 24 hour latency.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Not always. Particularly if you're driving outside of your
| provider's service area, it may take as long as a week for a
| charge to show up. I have a long commute right now and I
| sometimes don't see charges for days.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I had a problem with someone else having registered their car
| at my address. Fastrak matched the address and automatically
| charged their tolls to me.
|
| I used their terrible web portal to remove the other car from
| my account. They just added it back.
|
| I called them and told them it wasn't my car, that I did not
| consent to the charges. They didn't care.
|
| I ended up just cancelling Fastrak entirely and now I pay tolls
| only for my own vehicle manually. I can't use carpool lanes
| because of this.
|
| I've been considering registering a Fastrak with someone else's
| address, just so I can use carpool lanes again.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| That's awful but is pretty much confirming my experience. At
| the revenue level they have, you'd assume they could do
| better, but presumably having a monopoly means they don't
| have to care.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That's awful but is pretty much confirming my experience.
| At the revenue level they have, you'd assume they could do
| better, but presumably having a monopoly means they don't
| have to care
|
| FasTrak is a monopoly operated by a private, for-profit
| firm, accountable to it's owners. As long as complaints
| don't get to the body that oversees them and which is
| politically accountable to the public, they aren't going to
| try to do better, because that has a cost and reduces
| profits.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| I assume it's a monopoly that a/the government
| created/enforces?
| classichasclass wrote:
| What FasTrak provider is this? They're different in different
| regions. Down here in SoCal Orange county has their own
| system, San Diego, Riverside, LA, you name it. They're all
| required by state law to use interoperable transponders but
| that's where it ends.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I've been considering registering a Fastrak with someone
| else's address, just so I can use carpool lanes again.
|
| Use the address of someone in management at Fastrak if you
| want the problem fixed.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Great idea honestly. I really like the feature where I can
| register my car to my account (in case I do not have my
| transponder) vs the old way where you just got charged a
| massive penalty fee.
|
| But using someone elses address is a huge security problem
| lostlogin wrote:
| Or someone in local government/state government who has a
| bit of clout over them.
| benlivengood wrote:
| It was nice that the intermediate version beeped when getting
| pinged; the new flex version (with number of riders switch) is
| silent again. Maybe it's time to hack a tone into it.
| erwincoumans wrote:
| The new Flex transponder (with 1,2,3 switch) does beep for me
| when passing a bridge toll port (84, 92 etc), not on the
| highway 101 lane.
| outworlder wrote:
| How "new" is it? The new ones are not supposed to beep.
|
| https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/support/toll-tag-basics-
| fa...
| [deleted]
| erwincoumans wrote:
| Gumstick Flex from August 2019, but starts with 090
| instead of 101 (one month early). Why did they remove the
| beep?
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| Ah, that's interesting. I've never heard a beep from any of
| my transponders, including crossing bridges. Is yours the
| "gumstick" one? (Thin rectangular one). A beep would be a
| step in the right direction (but doesn't solve my other
| grievances).
| Melatonic wrote:
| Mine beeps but it is an ancient model that is quite large
| (maybe 3 inches by 3 inches - square)
| fotta wrote:
| I have a gumstick Flex from 2019 and it beeps.
| classichasclass wrote:
| I have a new southern California FasTrak switchable, and it
| does not beep (it's not supposed to, either, per the toll
| agency: no battery, no piezo).
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| tomc1985 wrote:
| This reminds me, the tolling system for the SF bay bridges are
| even worse... for some resaon you have a narrow band of time to
| pay your toll and the payment options are super limited. I got
| Fastrak because of how big a PITA it was and I don't even live
| there (though it's also in use here in socal)
| racnid wrote:
| Aaah yes. A while back I rented a car in England, did a bunch
| of driving, and on my way back to the airport crossed the
| Dartford Bridge in the dark. For some reason you have 24
| hours to pay it then it steadily becomes more and more
| impossible. I wasn't able to get online to pay it and flew
| out in the morning. Que a year of increasingly ridiculous
| demand letters from whoever runs that tolling system. They
| escalated to sending me bills in the US with short windows to
| pay which of course arrived after their demand window closed.
| So I never paid it.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| For some bizarre reason, the Bay Bridge toll plaza does not
| recognize the 1-2-3 settings on the newer FasTrak tags.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| We have something like that in New York State for me it is
| trouble free. I used to waste time stacked up in toll plazas
| around Albany but with EZ Pass I drive right through and don't
| feel like part of the problem.
| Penguinx628 wrote:
| I am not related to them in any way but I would recommend you
| to use privacy.com to control charges against your cards for
| situations like this. Capitol One has a service called 'Eno'
| and Citi has 'virtual account numbers' if you have either of
| those services they can also help you control charges in a much
| more granular way than using a regular credit card. Hope this
| comment helps someone like these services help me.
| pengaru wrote:
| Have you actually used citi? When I last checked their web
| site for managing the virtual CC #s required flash.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| They updated it recently to not use that
| rzimmerman wrote:
| One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a sense)
| everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari or a
| 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the same traffic. HOV/carpool
| lanes are an understandable conceit to incentivize good
| behaviors, but the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic
| just feels awful to me.
|
| Those transponders are cool though. I have a different one for my
| electric car with a CAV sticker which lets me use some of the
| SoCal lanes alone.
| slg wrote:
| >the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels
| awful to me.
|
| This is no different from any toll road except the toll road
| and the free road are right next to each other and are
| therefore perfect substitutes with the only difference being
| the amount of traffic on each.
| toast0 wrote:
| Yeah, toll roads don't feel right either. Of course, it also
| didn't feel right to buy a PHEV with carpool stickers, but I
| did it when my carpool partner took leave. Free charging at
| work was nice too (thanks Mark), although I was happier when
| I could take Caltrain.
| supernova87a wrote:
| Well, one practical response to this is that the toll lanes do
| not really cause other lanes to be slower (than what it was
| before), even though it feels like some group is being allowed
| to bypass everyone else.
|
| In the sense that -- suppose that you have a 4 lane highway.
| Adding a 5th lane will actually not help much to increase the
| capacity of the highway if it is traffic-bottlenecked. _For
| certain traffic volumes and lane configurations_ , adding lanes
| doesn't increase throughput.
|
| So having a toll lane basically just helps to generate revenue
| from people who are willing to pay (and allow those who are
| willing to pay to drive slightly faster past traffic), while
| not significantly slowing down most other people (who already
| experienced congestion in certain stretches of highway before
| this).
|
| Now, whether this feels fair and is a good idea is a different
| question (and clearly generates a lot of opinions).
| marcinzm wrote:
| >but the idea that you can pay money to skip traffic just feels
| awful to me.
|
| Plenty of places in the US have whole highways that require
| payment to use. Same for most tunnels and bridges that you can
| go around but it takes significantly longer.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I was going to point out - aren't toll roads a thing?
| rzimmerman wrote:
| I'm in California where toll roads are more rare. I also
| dislike tolls on roads, though I understand the pragmatism.
| ra7 wrote:
| Like Texas. It's littered with toll highways.
| outworlder wrote:
| I thought Texas was supposed to be 'cheap' and 'low taxes'?
|
| That's how they make up the difference. That, and property
| taxes.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| It was until everyone from CA and other areas started
| moving in during Covid.
| tbihl wrote:
| In a very significant way, this is not true. Everyone is paying
| with their time and losing it irreparably to a wasteful
| process, yes, but the quality of that time varies enormously
| with how much you spend. On the low end, you're sitting in an
| old car with significant road noise, a mushy clutch on your
| manual transmission, crappy speakers to listen to your podcasts
| via cassette adapter. weak/no air conditioning, windows that
| let most of the light through, and you're sitting low because
| your cheap 1990s car wasn't built for highway warfare. At the
| other end of the spectrum, you're sitting on an air-conditioned
| leather seat in a brand-new electric SUV with tint so dark that
| for some reason it is only legal in SUVs, taking calls with a
| good microphone array and excellent speakers; you're also
| sitting high up in a vehicle equipped for modern highway
| warfare, but you barely even notice because your car's
| radar/lidar is doing most of the spacing and lane-keeping for
| you anyway.
|
| So, yes, everyone's sitting around waiting, but it's the
| difference between sitting at home in your living room and
| sitting in the DMV.
| rzimmerman wrote:
| I guess I just like the idea that whether or not you have a
| nice car/experience, it still takes just as long to get
| there. Not advocating anything - I just appreciate the
| abstract equalizer of the road.
| asah wrote:
| yep, all equal - fees, fines and costs (e.g. fuel) are the same
| fraction of your income whether you make $10,000 per year or
| $10,000,000 per year. /s
| vmception wrote:
| > One thing I love about driving in America is that (in a
| sense) everyone is equal. Whether you drive a brand new Ferrari
| or a 1990 Toyota, you still wait in the same traffic.
|
| Where is it different?
| rzimmerman wrote:
| Sorry - just speaking about my own experience and implying
| that an important "American value" to me is classlessness,
| which seems to erode over time. Thanks for calling me out on
| that. I don't think this is different anywhere in the world.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've heard (could be rumor) that the "high speed highways" in
| Japan are toll roads with tolls so high basically _nobody_
| uses them. Maybe that 's an example?
| outworlder wrote:
| It's not 'nobody'. They still have traffic jams. But they
| would be horrendous otherwise.
|
| They are really competing with trains. Even if they were
| free.
| darkengine wrote:
| Japan's expressways are privatized and tolled per-
| kilometer. They are competing with long-distance train
| lines, so the toll is in the same ballpark as a train
| ticket (about 13000 yen or $110 from Tokyo to Osaka).
|
| The privatization of the expressways was pretty much
| enabled by the viability of the rail networks, which are
| also mostly privatized, mostly profitable, and extremely
| well-built.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| My first thought was "that's enormous", but that's still
| smaller than the IRS standard deductible for mileage.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| In Buenos Aires, the northern, suburban, tolled highways have
| a non-tolled two-lane alternative that go side by side. Going
| west or south - some of them have a speedbump-filled
| alternative street, others don't even have that.
|
| They don't ask which brand of car you're driving, but there's
| a really high correlation between income level and living
| area - northern parts being the richest.
| sjburt wrote:
| Well, if you are wealthy enough you hire a driver and somehow
| that counts as a carpool, at least in LA.
| rzimmerman wrote:
| Or like a VC I once spoke with listening to a rideshare
| pitch: "I'm not your target market. I drive alone in my
| Bentley in the carpool lane. I don't care if I get a $400
| ticket."
| samhw wrote:
| Hahaha, this is the best thing I've read all day. That's
| fantastic. I _knew_ there would be a way for rich people to
| get around it. (Like when my friend got around COVID
| restrictions travelling to Mexico by just taking his dad 's
| plane [since lots of the restrictions applied only to
| passenger jets due to transmission risk].)
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Define "get around it"?
|
| I would have said "it" was paying more to use the fast
| lane, and hiring a driver is definitely paying more.
| jffry wrote:
| There is a highway near Washington DC (I-66) that has dual-rate
| HOV lanes like this. During peak rush hour times, the lanes are
| free to vehicles with 2+ people, but solo drivers can also opt
| to pay to use them.
|
| They wanted to ensure that the HOV lanes move fast enough that
| the people who are carpooling will actually be rewarded for
| doing so. This meant that there had to be a dynamic toll for
| solo drivers.
|
| Imagine the outrage when on a particularly busy day, this
| dynamic toll exceeded $20 for a ten-mile journey. The reality
| is plenty of people were cheating and using the HOV lanes as
| solo drivers, and now the tolling mechanism means they can no
| longer get away with it.
| Bud wrote:
| There seem to be some negative comments about this, but in my
| opinion this is exactly how this should work.
|
| Even better would to have one of these signs up _before the
| enforced toll area begins_ , to remind drivers what they have
| their transponder set to, in case they "forgot" to set it
| properly.
|
| Still better would be for the transponder to beep once for the
| 1-person setting, twice for the 2-person setting, etc., although
| this could get a bit annoying.
| jeffbee wrote:
| The newest transponders (since 2020) don't ever beep, because
| they are totally passive and have no battery.
| modeless wrote:
| Thanks, I was wondering why my new one didn't beep. No
| battery makes so much more sense.
| ridaj wrote:
| Why bother! In 10 years in California I have never seen anyone
| get pulled over for carpool lane violations, but pretty much
| every time I'm on the road, I witness one.
| bduerst wrote:
| As someone who used to drive electric in the HOV lane through
| Emeryville CA, I've seen many people get busted.
|
| Conversely, driving the same through the peninsula I never saw
| any. It seems to be up to the discretion of the county/local
| cops to enforce, which isn't a conviction of the rule itself
| but really the enforcing authority.
| willidiots wrote:
| Exactly. The whole system seems hilariously naive if you have
| any real-world driving experience in the bay area.
|
| I drove 205/580->680->880->237 daily for years, one of the
| first express corridors. People constantly crossing over the
| double-white line, intentionally exiting the lane at each
| transponder to skip tolls, driving on the shoulder, driving
| past a huge line of cars so they can bully their way in at the
| last moment. CHP seems to let most of that slide - they're busy
| with the massive accidents that constantly result.
|
| I highly doubt they're going to care about 1 vs 2 vs 3, and I
| feel for them if they're expected to.
| ryandrake wrote:
| The last two years have shown us that people will routinely
| and casually break the rules merely to avoid mild discomfort,
| even while lives are on the line and people are dying. I
| don't see how these voluntary transponders are even remotely
| effective.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| How can you tell what cars get pulled over for?
| mywittyname wrote:
| Presumably, OP rarely sees anyone pulled over. So cause is
| irrelevant.
| zachberger wrote:
| This, I have lived in the Bay Area for ~5 years now and
| I've seen <5 cars pulled over on a highway since being
| here.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I think this system should improve enforcement. Now, the state
| will bill you for driving on the lane with an automated system.
| They can bill every single person in the lane. It doesn't
| depend on the police prioritizing the issue anymore.
| gkop wrote:
| No. If you choose 3 you don't get billed. This is a scenario
| clearly described in the article .
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The express lane has cameras and they take photos of cars
| without a fastrak so they can send you a bill. Might they
| also use those cameras to check how many people are in the
| car? If you break the rules, you're generating evidence and
| making it easy for the state to collect more revenue.
| pertymcpert wrote:
| You can just have a car seat with a shade on the back.
| Babies count.
| dekhn wrote:
| I was pulled over for a carpool violation (101S, driving in the
| HOV lane with a single passenger). It does happen.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| I've seen at least a 4-5 cars pulled over for carpool
| violations in norcal, usually in considerable traffic.
| Cathartic event really. One time there was a lot of cheers from
| other cars and horns honking.
|
| On a normal day it can be tough to tell why people are getting
| pulled over though. You'd have to be able to observe the
| conditions and watch them get pulled over which is a pretty
| short window given the attention & timing factors.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've heard from many people that in pre-pandemic
| traffic on the peninsula, the occasional carpool ticket was
| worth it for the time savings they got from taking the
| carpool lane. Carpool lane violations don't accrue points, so
| there's no insurance hikes or potential to lose your license.
| Especially with things like Waze being available, in slow-
| moving traffic cops didn't change their positions often and
| so you could fairly reliably avoid being in violation when
| you were in sight of them.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| I feel like a simpler system would be to just charge the same for
| vehicles using these lanes regardless of occupants. A higher cost
| will incentivize more occupants anyway. Of course in that system
| there would be no HOV lane incentive to drive electric vehicles,
| but so what? They have already been subsidized through tax breaks
| and we could always incentivize them further by increasing gas
| taxes. It just seems to me that a system like this is trying to
| incentivize different things and letting enforcement get to
| complicated. Just keep it simple and it won't be so bad. I think
| the point of these lanes should be to improve traffic flow by
| increasing the number of occupants in the cars. Electric vehicles
| simply do not achieve that.
|
| That said in a way I don't think this system is too terrible.
| It's a little funny, but it's at least fairly simple. But it
| requires enforcement. I've done a lot of driving throughout
| California recently and it seems like half the people in carpool
| lanes shouldn't be there. And apparently I'm the last person in
| the state that doesn't roll across the solid double lanes
| whenever I feel like it. Never have I seen a cop care about this
| stuff.
| m463 wrote:
| I've been pondering carpool lanes and wonder why we have them
| at all.
|
| - they are very unsafe. pretty much danger is proportional to
| the speed difference between stopped traffic and the carpool
| lane.
|
| - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the first
| place, why monetize further?
|
| - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for everyone
|
| - all that new infrastructure to track and charge people costs
| money, how much overhead is there?
| lkbm wrote:
| > - people pay extremely high taxes to use the roads in the
| first place, why monetize further?
|
| Monetize further = reduce needed taxes.
|
| > - just opening the lane would decrease congestion for
| everyone
|
| This is true iff they don't incentivize carpooling.
| matthewfcarlson wrote:
| I think carpool lanes are for public transportation. We just
| don't have have volume to justify a whole lane so we let in
| other yahoos. It makes a huge diffidence in Seattle knowing
| the bus takes an hour and driving by myself would take an
| hour and a half. However, if I paid 15$ in tolls I could get
| there in 30 minutes.
| cortesoft wrote:
| So the entire (original) purpose of carpool lanes is to
| reduce the number of cars on the road. The idea is that if
| three people are driving in one car instead of in three
| separate cars, that is two less cars on the road. In
| aggregate, this should speed up the commute for everyone,
| even people who don't use the carpool lane. Sure, you are
| giving up a lane, but in return you are removing 3x the
| number of vehicles from the remaining lanes for every car in
| the carpool lane.
|
| As for your speed difference issue, at least in Southern
| California, the carpool lane has a double yellow separating
| it from the regular lanes, hopefully giving some added safety
| since cars shouldn't move back and forth except at designated
| entry and exit sections.
|
| A lot of people think the purpose is to reduce pollution from
| the cars removed from the road (i.e. only one car's pollution
| instead of three), but in reality it should reduce pollution
| even MORE than that (because fewer cars on the road means
| everyone can drive faster, reducing the time spent with your
| car polluting while stuck in traffic).
|
| However, they messed this up by adding these other ways to
| drive in the carpool lane. Sure, an electric vehicle pollutes
| less, but letting them drive in the carpool lane eliminates
| the benefit of fewer cars on the road; three electric
| vehicles still take up the same amount of space on the road
| and cause the same traffic as three gas guzzlers.
|
| Then they added paying a toll, which does nothing to reduce
| pollution at all, and is simply a way to generate revenue.
| This is completely counter to the original purpose.
|
| So if they stuck to the original idea, I think it is
| worthwhile. In the original form, converting the carpool lane
| to a regular lane would not actually reduce the congestion
| for everyone, because while you are adding a lane, you are
| also increasing the number of cars on the road (of course
| there are a lot of factors that go into this... how many cars
| would carpool anyway, and how many cars are using the carpool
| lane at any one time).
|
| Here in Southern California, however, the carpool lanes are
| almost pointless. During high traffic times, they are just as
| congested as the regular lanes. In fact, they are often times
| slower than the regular lanes when congestion is medium...
| since they are only one lane and you can't switch lanes
| during most sections, you can end up with one slower car
| holding back everyone.
| CalRobert wrote:
| A monetized lane is a godsend when you're late and need to
| get where you're going as fast as possible.
| uoaei wrote:
| > just opening the lane would decrease congestion for
| everyone
|
| Adding lanes adds demand, and you get just as much (usually
| more!) congestion as before.
| bduerst wrote:
| Several of your questions can be answered here on the San
| Mateo county page:
|
| https://ccag.ca.gov/us-101-express-lanes-project/
|
| There's an effect called _induced demand_ where adding more
| free lanes to a road actually increases congestion, not
| decrease. Traffic engineers in the bay area have studied this
| and found it would be the effect if they just opened the HOV
| lanes up to all traffic.
|
| A toll expressway allows for relieving congestion on normal
| lanes without increasing road demand, and will pay for itself
| over time.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I do not think that would work - the charge for the toll is
| just not enough to really incentivize carpooling on its own.
|
| I agree some enforcement could improve things but then again I
| would guess this still increases carpooling just by the fact
| that most people do not want to worry about breaking the rules.
|
| An interesting enforcement option might be to create a fastrack
| app or integrate even with Waze / other apps where each person
| in the car has to confirm they are where they say there are. It
| wouldnt need to be running a full constant GPS like navigating
| with turn by turn - just a few GPS pings at the start of your
| trip to confirm you are all in the same vehicle (or even by a
| quick local bluetooth ping of each others phones)
| gridspy wrote:
| Both tolls or the requirement to have an "expensive car"
| (electric) quickly become discrimination against poor people.
| Possibly unintentional discrimination.
|
| I think it should be simple occupancy based only - vehicles
| with 3 occupants or more only.
| [deleted]
| dublinben wrote:
| Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory. Even if it
| were, the most direct way to address it would be to just give
| money to people who lack it, or offer a means-tested
| discount.
|
| "Poor people" already drive less than higher income people,
| are more likely to depend on public transportation and suffer
| the consequences of living near polluted highways. They will
| disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion policies like
| tolling highway lanes.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Scarce goods being expensive isn't discriminatory.
|
| Would you be saying this if we were talking about high
| commuter rail fares or park fees that are used as a
| backhanded way to "class up the place"? Because that's
| basically what tolls are.
|
| >"Poor people" already drive less than higher income
| people,
|
| Not in the context of toll roads. They don't go an extra
| 5mi to whole foods. They don't take frivolous trips. But
| none of that is what tolls are trying to solve. Tolls are
| trying to solve peak commute hour demand. This is a use
| case where poor people wind up using roads (or any other
| form of transit) proportionately more than the wealthy
| because their jobs tend to be less flexible.
|
| Yes, they drive proportionately less for cross-town type
| stuff and a little less for commuting (because you can't
| justify a long commute for a poorly paid job) but the ones
| that do drive don't deserve to be the first kicked off the
| road so a bunch of HNers can drive 5mph faster.
|
| >They will disproportionately benefit from anti-congestion
| policies like tolling highway lanes.
|
| What? What? Do you seriously believe this? Poor people
| benefit massively from reduced cost (in time, money and
| frustration) because their other options are more curtailed
| so being able to economically justify a trip to Walmart to
| save 10% over the local option (or whatever) or a different
| commute to a job that pays marginally more is of larger
| benefit.
| lancesells wrote:
| Electric car or not shouldn't there always be an incentive for
| extra occupants? Those cars require a huge amount of resources
| to make and run. Personally, I think even the tax breaks are
| off. The biggest tax breaks should be from not owning a car at
| all. The second is probably not buying a new car because you're
| not using additional resources. Then maybe new electric cars
| followed with hybrids.
| bubblethink wrote:
| The fast track on 101 is such a scam. The old HOV lanes were free
| during off-peak hours. Fast track is 5 AM to 8 PM. You'll see a
| few miles of bumbper to bumper traffic around Palo Alto while the
| fast track lanes are empty in the afternoon.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Yea this is a bit of a crapshoot. Weren't the old HOV lanes not
| THAT different though in hours?
|
| At least its not like Orange County where they have WHOLE
| FREEWAYS that are fastrack ONLY. All day, everyday, with no
| free lanes in sight.
| bubblethink wrote:
| Old HOV lanes were 7 AM - 9 AM and 4 PM - 7 PM or something
| like that. So outside of those hours, everything was pretty
| load balanced, which makes sense. This move seems to be more
| about revenue maximization than reducing traffic. They
| haven't even completed the full stretch from SF to south bay,
| but once they do, it would cost about $10 to do that run. Add
| $5 in gas, and you are looking at $15 per trip, one-way. Tax
| dollars at work.
| pishpash wrote:
| Seems like they should lower the congestion toll there. Easy
| problem to observe and solve.
| Melatonic wrote:
| We have had these same transponders in the Los Angeles area for
| years and years but I do not think they do this with the number -
| I always thought it seemed odd that there was almost no
| accountability to cheating the system.
|
| Also - does the CHP even have time to enforce this? At least
| where I live they are plenty busy with more pressing matters. But
| maybe on the Peninsula they have more time.
|
| As someone who grewup in the Bay Area and now lives in Los
| Angeles I thought it was funny when she talked about how to tell
| the invaders (based on how they say either "101" or "the 101").
| The better test for this (in my opinion) is if someone says they
| live / work in "the valley" or the peninsula. If someone says
| "the 101" that just means they are from socal vs somewhere else.
| It always cracks me up when someone tries to humblebrag by saying
| "oh me? I live in The Valley" because the OG locals are
| internally rolling their eyes.
| omoikane wrote:
| It always cracks me up when someone mentions "the 101" and then
| someone else would immediately respond "found the Southern
| Californian!" I thought this phrasing of "invaders" was a real
| gem.
| [deleted]
| sly010 wrote:
| This happened to me. I am unfamiliar with the area, the rental
| company didn't mention it so I ended up receiving a ticket for
| not setting my transponder correctly. They even send my a picture
| on the ticket clearly showed me and my wife (2 people!) in the
| car. I ended up contesting it and they dropped it (first offense
| I guess). I bet they are relying on the fact that most people
| will not fight it. It's a stupid system.
| punnerud wrote:
| Why do you need a switch, you could have a webpage/app where you
| change the settings. That way you don't have the hardware
| cost/risk.
|
| They manage to give you instant feedback if you have paid your
| bill, so I don't see why this could not work the same.
| jandrese wrote:
| Who the hell wants to open up their phone and futz around with
| an app or the browser when someone else gets in the car? Plus
| you have to open it up to check the current setting. The
| physical switch is better.
| fotta wrote:
| You can also add your license plate number to your Fastrak
| account so if you don't have the transponder in your car it'll
| just charge back to your account via the plate. Obviously doesn't
| work if you want to carpool.
| roflchoppa wrote:
| Man I really hate the new HOV lanes, there are too many negligent
| drivers that drive below the speed limit, at least with a carpool
| lane you could overtake.
| classichasclass wrote:
| Meanwhile, half the HOV-lane drivers around here are single
| occupant, and I never see the CHP bat an eye.
| supernova87a wrote:
| What really bugs me right now is that the lanes are not hard-
| divided or at least 4-stripe divided from the regular lanes
| like they are in Southern CA.
|
| So what people are doing is switching lanes without fear of
| penalty in the stretches between the monitoring gantries, and
| either causing inconvenience or outright danger to others
| driving responsibly.
|
| Hopefully this will be fixed.
| Kina wrote:
| > What really bugs me right now is that the lanes are not
| hard-divided or at least 4-stripe divided from the regular
| lanes like they are in Southern CA.
|
| I actually think this is fine, but the signage is _awful_. In
| a bit of inverse awfulness, look at the 10 in the SGV. They
| converted a bus lane to an HOV decades (and now Fastrak).
| It's almost worthless unless your goal is to get from El
| Monte to downtown. There are virtually no exits/entrances.
| Also, I resent the effort spent on it because none of its
| glaring problems have ever been dealt with and my
| understanding is that it was basically converted to a toll
| road to comply with some federal requirement to lower travel
| times. So, the local agencies were able to claim they saved 2
| minutes on the commute to downtown and got to keep the
| federal funding. Way to target the metric there.
|
| The difference between how NorCal and SoCal does it is really
| bizarre. NorCal also has a lot of timed carpool lanes which
| are slowly being converted to these inane Lexus lanes. The
| timed carpool lanes felt like they were never a good idea
| because it seemed to generally cause confusion and instead
| increased congestion as people weren't sure whether they
| could use them. Also, I remain infuriated that the on-ramps
| in NorCal have carpool lanes enforced 24/7 instead of like
| they are in SoCal--only when the meter is actually on.
| slg wrote:
| Is this a Bay Area specific thing? The terms "HOV lanes" and
| "carpool lanes" are used interchangeably in my experience. Are
| you just calling out separated lanes? The reason for the
| separation is that traffic in those lanes is often moving much
| faster than the other lanes which makes it very dangerous to
| give people the possibility of pulling into that lane
| unexpectedly. The ideal HOV/carpool lanes should have two lanes
| to allow passing and be separated from the rest of the lanes to
| promote safety. The 110 in Los Angeles is a great example and
| it uses the same transponders with switches that the article is
| discussing.
| ddoolin wrote:
| In my experience, the vast majority of HOV/carpool lanes are
| single lanes, although some stretches like the 110 and the 91
| are doubled up and are a much better experience. It's hard to
| believe the 405, of all places, is a single HOV lane and it
| bunches up pretty much continuously.
|
| Although, on the 91, I don't know that it uses transponder
| settings since there's a dedicated "3+" lane when you
| approach reading areas, which are situated right in front of
| CHP buildings (so they can see if you're really 3+?)
| roflchoppa wrote:
| I was under the assumption that HOV lanes cannot be crossed
| over (double or single white lines) while carpools are dotted
| and are open to traffic flowing in and out.
|
| Of course you can only use it as an overtake lane in none-
| carpool hours, but now that's not even an option.
| slg wrote:
| The California DOT says they are synonymous[1]:
|
| >High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, also known as carpool
| or diamond lanes
|
| [1] - https://dot.ca.gov/programs/traffic-
| operations/hov#:~:text=W....
| gowld wrote:
| They are synonyms, but parent is talking about separated
| roadway for HOV, that you can't merge into / out of at will.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Aren't all HOV lanes separated? Any that I've seen in
| Canada and the eastern US only allow you to merge at
| dedicated locations. The new ones on the 400 in Canada
| actually have a merge lane appears for a few hundred metres
| before shrinking down again, even though there's no
| physical barrier, it's all just paint.
| jcranmer wrote:
| No. There are several HOV facilities where it's just a
| regular lane, especially for 'part-time' HOV facilities
| (which are basically "this lane is HOV during rush hour,
| regular otherwise"). For example, HOV lanes on the NJT:
| https://goo.gl/maps/pKzjvAgFUhac1bva7
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I don't think that's the kind of separation they're
| talking about. It's technically illegal to cross that
| yellow line, but I've never heard of anyone getting in
| trouble for crossing out and back in to go around a
| grandpa going 45 in a 70. There are some HOV lanes in
| Florida that actually split into an entirely separate
| side road and some that have those soft rollover columns
| you can drive through but it will scratch up your car so
| it's really only for emergencies.
| slg wrote:
| Exactly. There is a difference between not allowed to
| merge and not physically able to merge.
|
| Merging not being allowed is still dangerous because
| people don't always follow the rules. It might even be
| more dangerous than lanes that always allow merging
| because then at least drivers in the faster lane can
| prepare themselves to expect merging.
|
| A separated lane makes it impossible (or at the very
| least potentially damaging to the vehicle) to merge.
|
| Here is an example of what I think is the ideal HOV
| setup[1]. There are two lanes so a single slow driver can
| be overtaken and there are physical dividers that prevent
| unexpected merging. You can also see the toll signs
| mentioned in the article that display the passenger
| number set on the transponders as discussed in the
| article.
|
| [1] - https://www.google.com/maps/@33.9392023,-118.279664
| 9,3a,75y,...
| jiveturkey wrote:
| He's referring to the people that drive whatever speed they
| want to in lane #2.
| benlivengood wrote:
| But that applies to every lane in CA. The equilibrium seems to
| be staggered traffic in every lane going the same speed so that
| no one can cut you off and you know someone is filling your
| blind spots at all times. Oddly enough the right-hand lane is
| often free (mostly on 101N between Gilroy and San Jose) since
| no one wants to interact with merging traffic (one of the very
| few traffic laws/suggestions anyone follows).
| bradlys wrote:
| If you instead just think of everyone who drives as very
| lazy, unengaged, and completely checked out - this is how you
| get the behavior of traffic in the bay area. Everyone doing
| everything they can to not have to signal, to change lanes,
| to slow down or speed up, and to avoid interacting with other
| traffic.
|
| The issue here is that people choose it in an non-optimal way
| and thus it makes many people having to do _a lot_ more to
| get around others.
|
| And, yeah, the right lane is what I end up having to go into
| to get past people all the time because they create those
| walls constantly. And they're not wanting to interact with
| merging traffic because they're lazy.
| skybrian wrote:
| Since when is aggressive driving a virtue? Some people are
| more patient than others, that's all.
| bradlys wrote:
| Since when is staying out of the left lane unless passing
| and not creating walls considered aggressive driving?
| skybrian wrote:
| Is there a traffic rule that says you're not supposed to
| create "walls?"
| benlivengood wrote:
| Yep; stay to the right except to pass. It's in most DMV
| manuals and driving courses. It's not a (enforced) law
| like it is in some places.
|
| EDIT: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_disp
| laySectio...
| ac29 wrote:
| Thats not what your linked law says, it says:
|
| "any vehicle proceeding upon a highway _at a speed less
| than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same
| direction at such time_ shall be driven in the right-hand
| lane "
| StillBored wrote:
| Some states are much stronger:
|
| "Impeding the flow of traffic in the left lane is
| punishable by a fine of up to $200."
|
| https://www.txdot.gov/driver/safety/highway-driving.html
|
| along with:
|
| "After you pass someone, move into the right lane once
| you've safely cleared the vehicle."
| camgunz wrote:
| Indiana has one of these too, and I _loved_ it. Blocking
| traffic is super unsafe for all kinds of reasons:
|
| - Sometimes people need to get by (emergencies)
|
| - You're a blown tire / unexpected road hazard away from
| swerving into the car next to you
|
| If you're driving the same speed as the car next to you,
| feel free to tap your breaks, let them ahead a couple
| lengths, and then tuck in behind them. It's safer!
| thechao wrote:
| Yeah, except the last time I got in to this, it turned
| out that Texas was one of the very few states with a
| well-written _sane_ driving rule.
|
| Executive summary of Texas driving law: you must stay as
| far to the right as you can, without crossing the marker
| to the shoulder; if you pass, you must do so on the left,
| without impeding the flow of (oncoming) traffic.
| StillBored wrote:
| Actually, to lazy to dig it up, but TX has these huge
| lane sized shoulders on many roads. They are called
| "improved shoulders" and there are a half dozen cases
| where they are legally used as lanes. Including the case
| of a single lane road where someone is stopped in the
| main travel lane turning left, the shoulder may be used
| to pass them! (On the right).
|
| The more common (legal) use though is as a turning lane.
| throw10920 wrote:
| > right lane is what I end up having to go into to get past
| people all the time because they create those walls
| constantly
|
| Are these "walls" already traveling 5-10 MPH above the
| speed limit, by any chance?
| hnov wrote:
| Doesn't really matter, the speed limit is a sham anyway.
| We often point to how everything is better in Europe, try
| going to Portugal and sitting in the fast lane and not
| passing at 150kph (18 mph over limit). You'll have
| someone on your bumper, flashing their high beams within
| 30 seconds.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Hey man, how about you just figure out some way to relax on
| the drive instead of psychotically swerving around people?
| In order to shave a couple of minutes off your commute,
| you're putting yourself in mortal danger (and worse: you're
| endangering innocent people who don't actually deserve to
| die in a fiery car wreck)
|
| Here are some suggestions:
|
| 1. Move away
|
| 2. Move closer to your job
|
| 3. Rob a bank and then retire, since you're risking death
| every day anyway
| bradlys wrote:
| If you think going into the right lane is risking death -
| you shouldn't be on the road. You clearly are not good at
| risk assessment and should not be trusted with a vehicle.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| I'll take lazy Bay Area drivers over aggro Los Angeles
| drivers any day of the week
| roflchoppa wrote:
| I hit a dresser in that lane doing about 90 mph, my buddy
| said it turned into dust.
| spike021 wrote:
| Generally what I've noticed on the Peninsula (like driving
| 280 N/S or sometimes 101) and the South Bay is that people
| drive like they should be in the left-most lane the farther
| away they are from their exit. This means regardless of what
| speed they'll be driving, they tend to gravitate toward the
| faster lanes and inevitably create traffic. Not only that,
| but many of these people then cut across all 4 or 5 lanes of
| traffic at the last possible minute because they realize
| almost too late that their exit is next and they don't
| understand that in most cases they can just use the next exit
| if they miss the first one.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Not to defend shitty drivers but many exits up the 280 and
| 101 on the peninsula don't have easy turn arounds if you
| miss an exit. If you miss an exit you sometimes have to go
| a ways out of the way to turn around. This is especially
| the case on the 101's exits. You can hit lots of traffic,
| lights, and no u-turn intersections before being able to
| turn around and fight the same back to the on-ramp.
| spike021 wrote:
| Then that means the driver should plan to be in a lane
| close to exiting as far back as necessary to avoid
| dangerous maneuvers. Even if using a GPS, it'll usually
| say which exit you need to take; just combine that with
| the sign markers every so often that say the upcoming
| exits and you'll know how soon the exit you need is
| coming up. It's really not that difficult.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The small amount of discomfort you experience from people
| driving too slowly is nothing compared to the impacts of people
| trying to drive as fast as possible. Turns out, that traffic
| paradoxically moves FASTER (in the aggregate) when you reduce
| speed limits.
|
| https://theconversation.com/increasing-the-speed-limit-wont-...
|
| https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/413955/
|
| https://3659de2n61p72dta253nvqzd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
|
| https://3659de2n61p72dta253nvqzd-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...
|
| No, you do not need to pass slower traffic. Turn your radar
| cruise control on, enjoy your tunes, and learn to delay
| gratification.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The root cause is speed differential between traffic elements
| or groups thereof. You can either bring the upper bound down
| with draconian enforcement or you can bring the lower bound
| up, mostly by raising the statutory speed limit. The latter
| is far more popular.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Acceleration differential is also a cause, which cannot be
| fixed.
| roflchoppa wrote:
| No radar cruise control, it's a carburetor, personally I
| don't like driving behind people, their not paying attention
| to the road conditions.
| stfp wrote:
| It's not negligent to drive below the speed limit
| jiveturkey wrote:
| It is if you don't make a proper lane selection.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It's negligent to be an outlier, high or low, compared to
| other traffic speeds.
|
| I'll cut vehicles in poor states of repair or laden
| commercial vehicles some slack when it comes to things like
| merges and hill climbs.
| core-utility wrote:
| I'd frequently get stuck behind buses, box trucks, and vehicles
| towing trailers. It's astounding how the latter two are
| allowed. I somewhat understand municipal buses in an effort to
| ensure more people ride, and it wouldn't be as annoying if it
| weren't coupled with the other two.
| vondur wrote:
| Wow, I just checked, and you can legally tow travel trailers
| in the TollRoads, except for the 91 expressway here in SoCal.
|
| https://thetollroads.com/help/faq/396
| amirhirsch wrote:
| Do you like to merge onto a 65 mph highway going 40? Do you
| like to drive your Prius in the left lane without passing
| anyone, with no one in front of you, and a trail of cars behind
| you?
|
| Welcome to Silicon Valley! You'll fit right in!
| roflchoppa wrote:
| Buck-twenty in a 70s Japanese tin can for me baby.
| artificial wrote:
| People tend to bring their regional driving habits with them
| and they're all in conflict.
| m463 wrote:
| If I find myself stuck behind a slow driver, it is very
| likely (statistically) to be a prius.
|
| I'm uncertain if it is the demographic that buys a prius, or
| the techno display that rewards frugal driving.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Note that you have to have one of the newer transponders to be
| able to indicate how many occupants you have. If you have an old-
| school transponder it assumes you just have two occupants, and
| you pay the highest rate.
|
| I recently ordered a new one, and it appears to be free, assuming
| you send back the previous transponder.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| Wow this isn't known. The signs don't say that you need a new
| transponder to get the discount anywhere. I did always question
| how they'd know but quite simply no one made it clear. I
| haven't yet been hit since I don't drive often but wow this
| just seems to be looking to catch drivers who simply read the
| sign and assume they're good to go since they match the
| conditions listed on the sign. It turns out there's a hidden
| condition!
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I believe there is a sign that says "fastrak flex required",
| but it might not be obvious to everyone what that means.
| gnicholas wrote:
| There may be signs somewhere; I've not seen any. But
| regardless, it's not a matter of required or not required.
| You can still use these lanes with regular old Fastrak, I
| believe. You just get charged the highest rate. Ditto if
| your transponder is broken or not in your car, and you are
| identified by registered license plate.
|
| Of course, this is too much information to try to explain
| on a road sign, as drivers zoom past at 65+ MPH, and
| they're fumbling for their transponder in the glove box.
| That's why it would have been great if they had sent out
| emails to customers, whom they regularly send account-
| related updates.
| gnicholas wrote:
| If you have a transponder, you wouldn't necessarily even know
| that you were being charged for 2 occupants when you had 3+.
| You'd have to look at your detailed bill (who does that?) and
| remember how many occupants you had on which trips. Most
| people would probably just be overcharged until they realized
| that they need to get the transponder with toggle.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >The signs don't say that you need a new transponder to get
| the discount anywhere.
|
| That's a feature, not a bug.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I got my Fastrak Flex in 2017. They aren't _that_ new.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Great! Some folks have had transponders for a decade or more,
| as they don't need replacing very often. AFAIK, this is the
| first time that there has been a reason to get a new
| transponder if your existing transponder is still
| operational. It's also not communicated very well to
| customers. I've talked with many people who wondered how
| Fastrak knows how many people are in your vehicle. They were
| unaware that there are new transponders with a toggle.
| outworlder wrote:
| > Some folks have had transponders for a decade or more, as
| they don't need replacing very often.
|
| Are they still working? They have an internal battery that
| can't be replaced. Mine stopped working after 4 years.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I got one in 2007 and have replaced it once. Got another
| in 2014 and it's still working.
| jkubicek wrote:
| I didn't know there was a new transponder until just this
| moment.
| gnicholas wrote:
| BTW there's also a special version for 'clean air
| vehicles'. But it's not for all clean air vehicles, and I
| think my plugin hybrid doesn't qualify. Confusing!
| browningstreet wrote:
| Neither did I. Been using the same once since... 2008.
| And I log in periodically to check charges and change my
| address and update CC and was never notified that maybe I
| should consider upgrading.
| bradlys wrote:
| Yes but given almost no one on the peninsula ever needed it.
| They're a new requirement and many of us who had them are now
| having to order the new ones to accommodate these damn toll
| lanes.
|
| I hate the toll lanes with a passion. You get charged even
| when there is 0 traffic. It should be free unless there's
| traffic! (Or just not have a toll lane to begin with and stop
| punishing the poor over and over!)
| jeffbee wrote:
| godman_8 wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20220310040354/http://rachelbyth...
| ta988 wrote:
| Any reason you are archiving it?
| godman_8 wrote:
| It wasn't loading for me, figured I'd share if others were
| having the problem.
| ta988 wrote:
| Thanks!
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| This system seems quite stupid. Surely the expenditure could be
| better invested in public transit. Not only is public transit
| orders of magnitude more effective in terms of people moved per
| hour, it's also much more equitable.
| unreal37 wrote:
| Even if this system cost $20 million to set up, how much public
| transit does that buy you? 100 feet of subway track? 20 buses?
| 1 mile of streetcar track?
|
| Transit is way more expensive than any cameras.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| None of your numbers are correct. Buses will be more than a
| million per bus, plus the cost of hiring drivers. You would
| be lucky to get 10 buses.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| 100 feet of subway track? I _wish_ I could get those rates.
| NYC 's latest Second Avenue Subway budget is $6.3 billion for
| 1.5 miles, or, about $800,000 a foot. You can get _25 feet_
| of subway track.
|
| California's not quite that bad, but, it's close to that bad.
| The Downtown Extension for Caltrain is $3 billion for a mile.
| SF's Central Subway is $923 million a mile. So sure, you can
| get about 114 feet of subway, but it'll be the short little
| LRVs and not like BART or anything nice-ish.
| m463 wrote:
| makes me think The Boring Company might do well lowering
| the cost of tunnels...
| cbhl wrote:
| When I went to the planning meeting for the San Mateo 101
| Express Lanes project in Redwood City, these lanes _were_ seen
| as an investment in mass transit. The tech shuttles will use
| these Express Lanes instead of sitting in mixed traffic, taking
| load off of the Caltrain (which, pre-pandemic, was at capacity
| during rush hour and needs electrification and grade separation
| work to run more frequent trains). Also, constituents in bay
| area dislike public-transit-only investments (see San Mateo's
| historical rejection of the BART proposal).
| gridspy wrote:
| Perhaps it reflects the transport choices of the lawmakers.
| They spend more time frustrated on the 101 than they spend
| attempting to use a bus or train.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| That could well be the case, and I would personally argue
| that that is a good part of the problem.
|
| For example, in Europe, it's quite normal for lawmakers to
| cycle or take public transport to the office. Obviously,
| some/most of it is performative to present a public image of
| the politician as a "man of the people", but it does expose
| them to the problems of the lay person as opposed to sitting
| in a chauffeured car.
|
| Needless to say, our public transport systems (and cycling)
| are much more sane, affordable, and efficient options here.
| They are by no means perfect, but they are a damn good way to
| get around in most cities.
|
| It doesn't mean you can't or don't drive, but often driving
| is massively slower or less convenient (especially inside the
| urban core), so you jump on the metro/train/tram or bicycle
| to get where you need to be.
| Melatonic wrote:
| These systems are designed to be making money which then
| (theoretically) should go back into transport infrastructure. I
| agree we need more public transit - but keep in mind
| (generally) along this exact same route Caltrain provides some
| very good and very clean service already. I would really love
| to see that service extended all the way around the bay.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| The public doesn't want to fund mass transit with higher taxes,
| etc. so we get these toll systems. Up in Seattle there are
| similar mixed toll and high occupancy vehicle lanes that were
| built to help fund expansion of light rail systems, bridges,
| etc.
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| I think it's important to emphasis that this is only the
| American public. Many other countries _do_ prefer to fund
| public transport with general taxation. And things are much
| saner as a result: high quality public transport and bike
| lanes, without arcane rules around transponders and specific
| highway lanes.
| Melatonic wrote:
| I mostly agree but don't some european countries have the
| equivalent of toll roads? I could have sworn Germany had
| some.
|
| This route along the 101 does actually have decent public
| transit by american standards - Caltrain is pretty awesome
| mrsuprawsm wrote:
| I'm only familiar with Belgium, the Netherlands, and
| Germany - there are basically zero toll roads here. The
| occasional bridge or tunnel is tolled, but they are very
| much the exception as opposed to the rule.
| llampx wrote:
| Germany actually is one of the few countries in Europe
| that has a truly free Autobahn network. Most countries
| around it have tolls on highways.
| scarby2 wrote:
| I'm not sure about the 101 project in SF but we have exactly
| this in southern california and believe it or not it's been
| great. They integrated the HOV lanes into a Bus Rapid Transit
| system and use demand pricing to ensure that the lanes almost
| always stay moving.
|
| AFAIK the project expenditure is covered by people who want to
| get there faster. In this case the city/Metro gets to deploy
| more public transit without having to pay for it, and without
| having to charge riders more money. There are plans for
| expansion of the system as it's been very popular.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| By making cheating public, but without the public being able to
| punish defectors, you might actually increase the number of
| people who cheat, especially if they don't see them getting
| caught. Sometimes you don't want to give up ambiguity.
| causi wrote:
| _CHP could roll up on them and give them a ticket._
|
| I suspect almost everyone could get out of it by claiming to
| forget what setting they had it on, or that they'd flipped it but
| the switch didn't go all the way over, or it was sticky, etc.
| smachiz wrote:
| only a matter of time before this is photo enforced with
| recognition for humans being done by ML.
| Bud wrote:
| Except the assholes with illegally-tinted windows will ignore
| it and get away with it.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Most traffic violations, like parking tickets, are "strict
| liability": mens rea doesn't matter, if the offense was
| committed you're getting a ticket. Presumably this will be the
| same.
| dehrmann wrote:
| There's no safety aspect, so they really shouldn't be.
| There's a big difference between "I didn't mean to go 120 in
| a 65" and "I forgot to change the switch on my billing
| transponder to '2 people.'"
| jtsiskin wrote:
| This makes no sense, because then wouldn't every single
| person just say "I forgot"? Why would you ever not say "I
| forgot"?
| brewdad wrote:
| That's like saying "I thought I'd be done with my errand in
| 30 minutes" when you get a parking ticket for staying 35
| minutes. It doesn't matter the excuse, you are getting the
| ticket and maybe you'll be more careful about it in the
| future.
| function_seven wrote:
| I suspect the cop will have heard all of these explanations a
| hundred times by the time they pull you over, and will write
| the ticket anyway. :)
| bradlys wrote:
| Depends on how pretty you are and how much you cry.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| A few years ago a cop pulled me over and I gave him my
| license and registration, the usual song and dance.
|
| When he returned to my vehicle he looked at me closely and
| politely asked me (a non-trans male) if I was aware my
| driver's license specified that I was a woman. You could
| tell he was trying to walk the line between possibly
| offending me and alerting me to a fairly important clerical
| error.
|
| I had _no_ idea. The DMV screwed that one up somehow when I
| moved to that state and they granted my new license. We
| both had a pretty good laugh... I said, well, does that
| mean I can flirt my way out of this ticket? Unfortunately
| (or fortunately?) the answer was an amused "sorry, no."
| Fatnino wrote:
| I'm scrawny with a beard. How much do I have to cry?
| bradlys wrote:
| Find it funny people are downvoting this. It's a _known_
| thing. If you have any pretty friends - you can get out of
| tickets very easily by just being pretty and making
| something up. You won 't have this privilege as an
| unattractive person. No different than being pulled over
| and judged differently because of your race. Police are
| incredibly biased.
| hereforphone wrote:
| California is a confusing place to drive. Trying to find out how
| to pay tolls online was confusing. One bridge had a "stop and pay
| tolls!" sign, but no one was stopping, and I found out later they
| issue the toll online. This was all mostly in the Bay area on a
| recent visit.
| mataug wrote:
| I know its easier said than done, but gosh this is some absurd
| complexity for dealing with a problem of congestion, wouldn't it
| just be cheaper/safer/simpler/eco-friendly to offer better+faster
| public transport in the long run ?
|
| These kinda solutions just feel like band-aids on top of band-
| aids when what is really needed are sutures(stitches) ?
|
| I'm curious though, are there startups trying to solve this
| problem of public transport ? Just like the many startups focused
| on trying to perfect self-driving cars.
|
| PS self-driving cars cannot solve traffic congestion
| [deleted]
| ultimoo wrote:
| Building better+faster public transport brings orders of
| magnitude of absurd complexity, compared to implementing
| something like this. I do agree that public transit solves many
| of these problems in the long run, and I hope we get there some
| day.
| ctime wrote:
| 1) I drove from San Mateo to Sunnyvale daily for years pre-
| pandemic using the HOV lane (Took a bus, carpooled etc) . So
| happy to not live in the Bay Area anymore (for many reasons, but
| that aside) - that commute would be absolutely awful now assuming
| everyone goes back to the office and everything goes back to
| normal. It used to take 45 mins anyways on busy days with the
| carpool lane. I'm not convinced everything will really ever be
| back to normal in the bay area and full RTO is a pipe dream (also
| an aside), but that traffic will still be a mess because bay
| area.
|
| Now everyone can pay to play and probably only buses will ever be
| able to use it (plus all the cheaters! - cheaters are
| everywhere). Note that one of the "selling points" of the express
| lanes was that during peak congestion, the HOV lane becomes "Bus
| Only" to give preference to the most effecient mode of transport
| (8+ passenger busses/vans iirc)
|
| 2) If you have a Clean Air Vehicle, you need to order a special
| CAV toll tag to avoid paying full fees. Some freeways are still
| free, others will give you a discount. This link has the full
| details
|
| https://www.bayareafastrak.org/en/support/clean-air-vehicle....
| ma2rten wrote:
| How does this work for clean air vehicles? Do they still need the
| transponder?
| 01100011 wrote:
| Yes. You need a CAV tag. I started applying for one and then I
| noticed they wanted to pre-charge my credit card $25. I may not
| use an HOV lane for months and yet they want to take my money
| now for some reason.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| That sounds pretty awful.
|
| As much as the DC metro area is a hellscape their auction style
| access to HOV lanes is probably the most straightforward.
|
| It's nice in that you know how fucked you are based on the price.
| I remember passing through once and one section had like a $38
| toll, I just got off the highway and grabbed a burger.
| [deleted]
| jxramos wrote:
| I can't make heads or tails of why fasttrack has those messages
| "Tolling Begins Spring 2021", "Tolling Begins Spring 2022". Is
| this is a deliberately misleading message to get people to think
| that the system is not fully deployed and that the public is
| getting a courtesy heads up to start watching their lanes soon
| because they will be charged once the tolling actually begins?
| The tolling has already begun, why do they bother displaying
| these messages?
| pishpash wrote:
| Has it actually begun?
| formerkrogeremp wrote:
| As someone who's never heard of FasTrack before, this all sounds
| a little dystopian. In my state, we don't have toll roads, but
| our roads are pretty awful.
| boobsbr wrote:
| It gives off "Snow Crash" vibes.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| Get used to it.
|
| In the next 25 years, all the gas stations are going to close and
| all that gas tax revenue will need to be replaced, as that's how
| the roads are maintained. Gas tax is a usage tax, so to replace
| it with something equivalent, we'll need to be able to track our
| vehicle's road usage. Maybe cars will just self report, as new
| cars will just be a consumer electronics device with wheels and a
| broadband connection anyways.
|
| But more than likely the solution will be backwards compatible
| one at first, like all the license plates becoming e-License
| plates, with eInk screens and a Fast-Trak style responder for
| tracking tolls.
|
| Extrapolating on this, the idea that you could get into a vehicle
| and drive along public roads without those roads making a record
| of your passage is one that will slowly go away. Get used to it.
| Seriously.
| dehrmann wrote:
| I agree with the premise that governments will have to find a
| way to make up for the loss of gas tax revenue, but it seems
| like a really expensive solution, and it doesn't capture use of
| minor roads.
| vostrocity wrote:
| Many states already charge EVs and PHEVs a higher annual
| registration fee than ICE vehicles. I understand replacing the
| gas taxes, but very weird since it completely works against
| federal and state EV/PHEV incentives.
| criddell wrote:
| What do you think they should do?
| frumper wrote:
| They could just have you report odometer readings when you
| register it annually. We could even see a smog style car safety
| inspection to ensure that the numbers match up every few years.
| If all else fails an odometer reading when selling and the
| seller owes the taxes on those miles. No system is fool proof,
| but that would be a lot easier and cheaper than trying to
| somehow record every mile driven.
| brewdad wrote:
| No state is going to want to give up revenues for people who
| use their roads but live elsewhere. Plenty of major cities
| are on the border with other states with commuters going back
| and forth.
|
| Oregon tested GPS trackers as a way to track where those
| miles are driven and tax people accordingly (you could get a
| rebate on your tax paid at the pump). Understandably, people
| balked at having their driving tracked so closely and it
| never got out of the testing phase.
|
| Now, with pretty much every new car having a tracker
| installed by the manufacturer, some state will surely try
| again.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Crazy(?) solution: tax tires instead of gasoline.
|
| The tax amount would be a function of tire size since that
| correlates (via vehicle weight) with wear and tear on the
| roads.
|
| To handle early replacement (flat tires, etc.), when tires are
| replaced, give a rebate based on remaining tread.
|
| There would probably be a huge market for illegal tires
| (similar to illegal cigarettes), so that would require
| enforcement. You'd also need some way to stop tire theft. Maybe
| encode the vehicle's license plate number into a chip in the
| tire or something.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| They could just make truckers pay it all. They do the vast
| majority of damage to the roads as it is. For side roads we
| could just pay the old fashioned way with normal taxes. People
| without cars still benefit from the roads existence.
| myself248 wrote:
| Agreed. Road damage scales as the _fourth power_ of the axle
| weight. That's bonkers, you don't see that exponent in many
| phenomena.
|
| The question is how to move the funds around, as state taxes
| and road funding stop at state borders, but vehicles don't.
| And of course states will have a patchwork of registration
| rules, and won't share money with each other. So the trucking
| industry will lobby some state to be a tax haven, and all
| trucks will just be registered there.
|
| If only we had some sort of organization that allows states
| to solve issues that happen between states, like a larger
| government function...
| pacificmint wrote:
| > Road damage scales as the _fourth power_ of the axle
| weight.
|
| I've seen numbers that state the road damage caused by one
| truck is equivalent to several ten thousand cars. (Usually
| numbers between 10k and 40k).
|
| That seemed hard to believe when I first heard it, but the
| fourth power you mention is the explanation for that insane
| number.
| myself248 wrote:
| https://www.insidescience.org/news/how-much-damage-do-
| heavy-...
| idiotsecant wrote:
| This is a good example of policy you get when the people
| making policy don't understand (or understand but don't want
| to understand) physics but do understand that the
| transportation lobby is well-funded and well-connected.
|
| On one hand they get a bunch of kickbacks for their
| reelection war-chest and some roads fail 5 years after their
| re-election is over anyway and someone else will be blamed
| for it. On the other hand they directly fund their opponent
| who is unlikely to turn down those dollars, possibly fail in
| their reelection bid, and successfully save some roads that
| everyone will just assume would have lasted anyway.
|
| It's not hard to see that it's practically impossible for any
| other outcome, the system is practically _designed_ to create
| this kind of situation.
| martinald wrote:
| In the UK there are ANPR cameras everywhere. The police can and
| will pull your driving history (or at least when you passed the
| cameras), and if you are 'wanted' it will ping the local police
| force when you drive past one.
|
| Does this exist in the US? This has been going on for nearly 20
| years here.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| > Does this exist in the US?
|
| As with any time this question is asked, try to remember the
| US is the third largest nation in both geographic size and
| population, with 320 million citizens spread out over 50
| quasi nation-states, a handful of which themselves are bigger
| than most countries, and all with their own legal systems. We
| share currency, an army, a flag and a constitution. The rest
| is a roll of the dice.
|
| That said, at a Federal level, I've never heard of this and
| where I live in Northern California, I haven't heard of
| anything to that extent either. That doesn't mean it's not
| happening in some municipality in Michigan or Hawaii, or even
| in a different part of my own state. Though, honestly, I
| doubt it.
|
| The way we do surveillance here is more roundabout: First we
| allow right wing news media to scare the shit out of all the
| old people in the country, who then go out and buy doorbell
| and other Wifi cameras and start live streaming every square
| inch of their property, 24/7. Then we either compel the bigco
| to give the government access to the feed, complete with gag
| order, or the NSA just hacks in and takes it anyways.
|
| It seems to work well. Our video is all HD.
| downrightmike wrote:
| No many places like Arizona those cameras were made illegal.
| Some were installed, but the people voted to remove them.
| That's the difference between citizens and subjects.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >In the UK there are ANPR cameras everywhere. The police can
| and will pull your driving history (or at least when you
| passed the cameras), and if you are 'wanted' it will ping the
| local police force when you drive past one.
|
| Yes, on a state by state basis, but it's not used for mundane
| stuff because the American public even in the most boot-
| lickey states won't just roll over and take it and the powers
| that be would rather use the systems sparingly than anger the
| public and get rules and laws that say they can't.
| Melatonic wrote:
| Couldnt we also just charge a tax on electric vehicle charging
| stations or even integrate a tax with electric vehicle chargers
| in homes and multi unit dwellings?
|
| I dont personally oppose some tolls (like bridges or even this)
| but the gas tax (or modern equivalent) completely going away
| does not seem like it will happen.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Next question is who is buying and selling this information?
| [deleted]
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