Car pool lane the solution to Motorway madness?

Xterminator · 09-12-2004 4:50pm #1

An article of the BBC website 'Car-share lane will debut on M1' made me think.

What if the proposed 3rd lane for the M50 was made for cars carring passengers only? That might make car polling a common feature on our roads, it was rigirously enforced by the new Traffic Corps.

It should help alleviate the current situation where traffic is barely moving at peak times. I would be in support of such a move. Car pooling has obvious benifts to the enviornment, too!

X

dmeehan · 09-12-2004 4:58pm

"enforcement" is the key to the whole idea, as it wont work without it

Calina · 10-12-2004 12:39pm

Before the new Traffic Corps start enforcing new rules like car pooling, I would like to see them starting to enforce already existing rules such as lane discipline and behaviour on roundabouts. These have very major safety implications. In any case, I have a sneaking feeling that improved driver conduct on the motorways in this country would see traffic flowing a bit faster, even allowing for the idiocy of the way the interchanges on the M50 are designed.

In any case, what are you going to do for those people who actually use the M50 for what it was designed, ie, avoiding the city centre on long journeys from say north county Dublin to Limerick and vice versa? They're not quite as easily carpooled as commuter trips.

loyatemu · 10-12-2004 3:11pm

if it was rigirously enforced by the new Traffic Corps.

bah - it would never be rigorously enforced
with bus lanes it is easy to tell what is a bus and what isn't - much more difficult to tell from a distance how many people are in a car.

antoinolachtnai · 10-12-2004 4:54pm

Well, even if you enforced it, it wouldn't make that much difference. You'd only move traffic from the other lanes to the new lane.

Adding an extra lane doesn't make it any faster to get off the road at the junctions. It just allows the road to absorb bigger tailbacks without grinding to a complete halt. Al the new lane will do is stop the road from completely seizing up. It won't make transport any faster.

The extra lane would get you into a slightly shorter queue for the junction, but that would be about it.

A high-frequency bus service using the new lane looks to me like the solution most likely to improve transit times and reduce car use.

Car pool lane the solution to Motorway madness?

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