Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, said carpooling "is declining because local governments and businesses have scattered the jobs."
Transportation experts said the lanes tend to work well when there is a commitment to them, as on I-95/395. Those highways have two separated lanes and several roadside parking lots where commuters form carpools.
Maryland officials say almost half the vehicles using the Interstate 270 HOV lanes have too few occupants to qualify.
(Frank Johnston -- The Washington Post)
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On a typical morning in 2004, 35,250 people in 9,960 vehicles used the HOV-3 lanes on I-395 that require three occupants, Virginia officials said. Of those, they estimated that 22 percent were violators. The regular lanes carried far fewer people in almost twice as many vehicles -- 22,380 commuters in 19,800 vehicles.
Yvonne Clear is one such carpooler, leaving Fredericksburg each morning at 6 with two others so they can take the HOV lanes. Driving alone, she said, would be "suicidal."
Still, Clear said, the time savings aren't what they used to be. "It gets a little congested when you get toward Dale City, Woodbridge, Springfield, and it's bad from there to the Pentagon," she said.
Regional officials said HOV lanes are far less effective in places where they're a single lane. On those, cheaters run rampant and are hard to catch because they can slip in and out of the lane quickly. Time savings are uncertain and the incentive to use them diminishes.
The HOV-2 lane on I-270, for instance, carried about 1,700 people between 8 and 9 a.m. in spring 2004, Maryland officials said. But the violation rate was as high as 48 percent.
Transportation officials also said HOV-2 doesn't take cars off the road so much as provide a perk to people who would be pairing up anyway.
"You don't get new carpools," said Ronald F. Kirby, transportation planning director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. "It's not that hard to get two people in a car."
Instead of stretching the HOV lane north on I-270, Maryland officials are exploring plans to use that space to build express toll lanes. Pedersen also said officials are exploring ways to convert existing HOV lanes into toll lanes.
Mari Sanchez said she'd like to see more HOV lanes, not fewer. She usually drives by herself to work but not on days when she has to travel from Gaithersburg to the District with co-workers.
"We all try to just carpool and come back," said Sanchez, who said more HOV lanes would ease backups on them. As it is, she's not so sure that carpooling saves time.
"I'm starting to think that it could just be an illusion," she said. "I think it saves me time, but I really actually don't know."
