What do people think of the idea to have the lane on the M1 solely dedicated to cars with passengers?

The lane is to operate on the M1 between St Albans and Luton.

The UK's first motorway lane dedicated to drivers carrying passengers is to open on the M1 between St Albans in Herts and Luton in Bedfordshire. The system will be a trial scheme when the new lane is completed around 2008.

I'm not entirely convinced that the M1 is the ideal road to have such a system. I'm not sure it can be productive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/4083011.stm

I see the market for realistic inflatable passengers becoming quite lucrative.

:)

Seriously, I doubt it will work - it's surely going to be difficult to judge improvements made by the use of this new lane from overall improvements made by simply widening the road.

Why not reduce car usage by improving public transport?

Joe

Where are they planning on putting this lane in relation to the others? Probably cause more accidents than anything else...

I can see it now......Fred is on his way to London (from Sheffield) for that all important board meeting, Sally is on her way to London (from Derby) for the job interview, and whilst they queue up patiently in the traffic, a few hundred cars carrying five unemployed football hooligans in each go sailing past on their way to a Millwall match in the express lane! :loopy:

Hmmmm. can just see the carload of crinclies doing 30mph being really popular here

Doesn't Leeds have certain lanes people can use in rush hour as long as theres more than two people in the car. Carn't remember if its their Dual carraigeways or one of their motorways. 8)

Originally posted by Bikertec
Doesn't Leeds have certain lanes people can use in rush hour as long as theres more than two people in the car. Carn't remember if its their Dual carraigeways or one of their motorways. 8)

We've already got them - bus lanes......

Commuter/car pool lanes only seem to work at a certain level of traffic. They have them here in the 'States. I used to live up in Los Angeles and the car pool lane on the 405 freeway didn't help reduce traffic levels one bit. They seem to help a *little* down here around San Diego, but not by much. It seems that most people are willing to put up with sitting in their car longer in bumper to bumper traffic than to deal with the 'inconvenience' of finding a car pool buddy...the picking up, dropping off and chatter that you might not want puts people off.

Car pool lanes are not a solution - better and cheaper public transport is. But then you have increased taxes and so on. :(

The other solution is that those who are able to work from home, should. The Internet and telephone system are amazing things! :D

:thumbsup:

Hi Headup,

You are so right. Here in Northern California, they tried them for a number of years on this freeway:

http://www.interstate-guide.com/i-580_ca.html

It was such a miserable failure, they finally removed them. They actually made the traffic worse by reducing the freeway by one lane and creating bottlenecks.

And Joe, there were people stopped for insisting that the two dogs in their car counted as "passengers", and those who tried to use inflatable dolls, large stuffed animals, etc. One guy who turned out to be a fireman, was using the firehouse's CPR dummy propped up in the seat.

Hope it works out better for you all than it did for us!

:) Sierra

I can just picture it all the politicians jumping on the green band wagon to say how wonderful this new lane is going to be. Then six months down the line admitting that the public are not using it correctly so instead it's being opened up as just another lane for motorway users. Sneaky plan to widen the motorway without upsetting the environmentalists.