Caltrans on Thursday opened the new northbound carpool lane on Highway 101 in Novato.
The new lane runs from Highway 37 to Atherton Avenue. Last month, Caltrans opened a new segment of the southbound carpool lane in about the same area of Novato.
Construction of both segments of the carpool lane, which are the fourth lane in each direction, cost a total of $49.3 million and took about a year to do.
Marin County’s carpool-lane hours are 6:30 to 8:30 a.m. southbound and 4:30 to 7 p.m. northbound.
Next up for the highway’s widening in Marin is extending the southbound carpool lane from Atherton Avenue to Novato Creek and the northbound lane from Atherton Avenue to a bit south of the Redwood Landfill dump. Crews are scheduled to begin work later this year with completion by fall 2013.
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Makai
Carpool, aka NASCAR, Green, and bus lanes are so redundant here in the North By, they need to open them up to ‘all’ vehicles 24/7 to avoid the traffic congestion and speeders who violate the hours of use and never get caught.
What percentage of you carpool? I’d say maybe 15%. Because of varied working hours, and the fact still that people are greedy and lazy when it comes to driving habits.
Bottom line, do away with carpool lanes because they’re rarely utilized by ‘carpoolers,’ and they have become NASCAR lanes for irresponsible/entitled drivers.
August 9th, 2012 2:28 pm
Rich Honsa
great ! now there’s even more freeway for people to use illegally during commute time , issue some tickets to off-set the cost.
August 9th, 2012 2:43 pm
Steven
@Makai, I and everybody else who commutes using Golden Gate Transit use the carpool lanes all the time, in my case 5 days a week, and they’re a godsend. And you should be glad we do, as every one of those buses you see means 40-50 cars that are NOT on the road with you.
And if you have a problem with carpool lane scofflaws (which you should, I hate them too), then you should complain about the CHP not enforcing them strictly enough.
August 9th, 2012 3:25 pm
Dar
Yay for more lanes!!! It’ll be a day to remember when they finally widen the Novato narrows and have six lanes all the way from the Golden Gate to Windsor!!!
August 9th, 2012 4:06 pm
Joseph
Car pool lanes are great for public transit and their use should be restricted 24/7 for car poolers only. With all the home construction of high density housing being planned we need reasonable measures to get people out of their cars and into mass transit. The train cannot be built fast enough and we should be asking for high speed rail dollars to eliminate the grade crossings.
August 9th, 2012 5:08 pm
Makai
@Steven and Joseph, and I agree with you, as I once drove for an Airport shuttle company here in So Co. I also feel that professional delivery drivers should be allowed to use the carpool lanes too, but have either a special license plate, or sticker on their windshield visible to the CHP showing they are licensed to do so. This would ease some of the congestion in the other lanes.
Delivery drivers and their vehicles are very important to the economy, and getting them to and from their destinations quicker is important for the consumers.
August 9th, 2012 7:32 pm
Dar
Joseph, 24/7 doesn’t really work because there are no viable public transit options in the North Bay. It’s not like Europe where the majority of major cities have a few different train/rail options, plus bus options, etc.
August 10th, 2012 10:01 am
bob
I want to thank the good Lord for those carpool lanes. It really saves us a lot of travel time. I often wonder why people that go to and from the bay area for work at the same time each day don’t hook up with somebody and get one more car off the road. I reckon it’s that feeling of “independence” that people have.
August 11th, 2012 4:33 pm
Rachael
This adding of new lanes was the worst planning mistake of all time. Now, instead of three lanes turning to 2 abruptly after the northbound Atherton exit, there are 4. So at no time is the carpool lane functioning as it should. It’s always congested at all hours of the day. I carpool from Petaluma to Sausalito everyday, and what used to take me 40 minutes to get home after work now takes me over an hour. They should have widened the road at the narrows and left it three lanes through Novato.
August 14th, 2012 5:02 pm