Toll Roads and HOV Lanes
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“Projects to Get California Moving Again” (editorial, March 8), otherwise exemplary, contains a serious error. After advising against building more freeways, it recommends the huge high-occupancy-vehicle lane (HOV) program as desirable.
The HOV program is thinly disguised freeway building. To spend over $6 billion (we suspect that Caltrans’ estimate, as always, will be on the low side) is outrageous. HOV lanes will attract car pools, van pools and buses already in existence; latent demand will fill the vacated spaces in the existing lanes. It will increase automobile/truck trips, thereby increasing congestion and air pollution.
More HOV lanes will cement even more our automobile-dependency. The motorist and the trucking industry should be confronted with the full financial cost of their use of these facilities. Our real need is for accelerated programs to build trunk-line rail transit facilities, not additional highway capacity.
STANLEY HART, Chairman
Transportation Committee
Sierra Club, Los Angeles
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