This only happened a few times that I can recall, certainly never anything as organized as in Virginia....

Harbor Transitway: One other thing causing low ridership is that the stations are generally a pain to get to/from. Long elevator rides (in elevators that are not particularly clean) and also a feeling of lack of real security up there. On the rail lines, at least the Sheriffs patrol once in a while...

Converting existing lanes to carpool lanes: Not going to happen, after they got burnt with that "Diamond Lane" project on the Santa Monica Freeway back in 1976...

Most folks say that the Harbor Transitway's ridership is dismal because no passenger wants to sit in the middle of freeway traffic, but I think the lack of ridership is especially due to the high prices of Metro Express / OCTA express bus service, the lack of marketing, and the confusing timetable (if you've seen the Harbor Transitway timetables, you'll see crazy lists of times for the 400-series buses all crammed together with different destinations).

The media also might have asked, if carpool lanes are cool, why isn't Caltrans' proposing to convert existing 405 lanes to carpool lanes?

I didn't know the name, but something similar happens in San Francisco, on the Golden Gate bridge crossing. People line up for rides, and drivers benefit by having access to the carpool lane.

I haven't seen the equivalent in SoCal. I'm not even sure how it would work, although I suppose if the carpool lanes offered a clear advantage, we'd figure a way.

In my experience, the benefit of the lanes isn't clear. Sometimes they have less traffic, but sometimes they are more congested and move slower. One downside is that they often feel "claustrophobic" -- they are on the innermost lane, where close to the driver's left lies a protective, cement wall. The wall restricts the driver's options in difficult traffic. I've sometimes gotten out of the lane because I felt it was less safe than just driving normally.

Once the northbound HOV lanes are in place, complementing the existing southbound ones, a proposed Metro Express line running direct from the Orange Line station in Van Nuys to Wilshire/Westwood can be put in place, replacing the much slower (and ironically named, in this case) Metro Rapid 761.

And, as a piggyback to Stats Dude's comment, the reason the Rapid is slower is because it has a lot of intermediate stops to make. The proposed Express will not.

Are you familiar with the term "slugging?" In Washington DC, slug lines form at park and rides and major destinations, such as the Pentagon. These are carpoolers who line up. Someone in a car shows up, and takes them to the other end. Drivers get the benefit of a carpool lane, which means less commuting time, and the slugs get a free ride.

It has really become well organized over the past 30 years, considering it just happened naturally.

http://www.slug-lines.com/

On the days that I have to drive to the office, I usually go to my local bus stop, to see if there is anyone from my bus I know. If so, I offer them a ride to where they would normally be dropped off, and I get a carpool lane, which shaves 15-20 minutes off my drive home. They save about 10 minutes, avoiding all the stops the bus would make.

In any case, the HOV lane is a bandaid. The freeway won't be any less clogged.

How much evidence is there that carpool lanes actually cause people to participate in carpools?

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I find the 405 an interesting case study. From what my uncle tells me, it was originally built in the 1960s to reduce congestion along Sepulveda Blvd, then the primary means to get from West LA to the San Fernando valley. Because it effectively tripled car carrying capacity, it was a wild success.

The success didn't last long, however. Within ten years after construction finished, the 405 was nearly as congested as Sepulveda Blvd had been originally. The intervening years haven't yielded much progress.

Today, the various widening projects amount to a band-aid at best. If we really want to reduce congestion, we probably would have to do something on a scale with the original 405 project: triple the lanes. That kind of freeway building would be unprecedented to my knowledge, and would mean a roadway some fifteen lanes across in both directions -- thirty total lanes!

Eventually I think we'll need to see our freeways as prime area for rail construction. We have an effective transportation network here, but it is used inefficiently. If we were to replace the centers of our freeways with rail, we could quite quickly have an extensive transportation system that worked. Commuting from, say, Santa Clarita to Century City on the 405 train would be a snap. You'd take the train to the Santa Monica Blvd. station, and then bicycle/bus the two miles to Century City.

The I-405, however, is a critical HOV corridor. Once direct connectors are complete at the I-5/CA-14 interchange (under construction) and at the I-5/I-405 interchange (planned), there will be continuous HOV lanes from Palmdale to Laguna Niguel, assuming this bizarre northbound gap in the Sepulveda Pass is filled.

This I-405 HOV project will provide much more than 10 lane-miles; it will increase the value of all the other HOV lanes in the region.

I do agree, however, that if Schwarzenegger is going to appear at these press events, he can't yank state funding a day later. The Prop 1B bonds need to get flowing!