Colorado opened its first “Lexus lanes” last week, and already there’s a petition to prevent more of them. But I’m not about to sign it, because these are a pretty good idea, and the arguments against them don’t hold up.
What’s a “Lexus lane?” In this case, Interstate 25 has some lanes set aside for buses and High Occupancy Vehicles (those with a driver and at least one passenger). If you pay a toll, then you can use that uncrowded lane even if you’re the only person in the vehicle.
The theory is that some people’s time is worth so much that they’ll pay to save some, while the rest of humanity struggles in congestion. As Gov. Bill Owens pointed out, there is excess capacity in the HOV lanes. So why not sell it and increase revenues for the Colorado Department of Transportation?
As a non-urban dweller, I’ve never used the HOV lanes in Colorado. In December 2000, though, Martha and I drove to Texas to visit her mother and sister. We hit Dallas right at rush hour. Over to our left on the packed freeway was an empty HOV lane.
With just two of us in the Blazer, I wasn’t sure we qualified. I knew that two was enough in Colorado, but Texas, as they say, is “a whole ‘nother country.”
I entered the HOV lane anyway. I figured that if I got pulled over for an inadequate passenger load, I could explain that I was an ignorant Yankee and beg forgiveness. We whizzed across Dallas; I never saw another car in our lane.
Upon our arrival, I asked my fourth-generation-Texan brother-in-law about my gambit. “Two’s enough for the HOV lane in Texas,” he said, “so you were legal.” Since it offered such easy travel at a crowded time, why didn’t more people have passengers so they could use it, I asked. “Think about gasoline,” he said. “We make the stuff here. So I suppose the idea is to use a lot of it and support the local industry. Or maybe we’re just anti-social and don’t like other folks in our cars.”
At any rate, the “Lexus lanes” in Colorado are open to drivers of every income level, providing they aren’t driving solo. That’s hardly a discrimination against the poor.
Besides, it’s an American habit to make life easier for the wealthy. Most of us sit jammed in coach on an airliner, but those willing to pay more can sit comfortably in first-class. Most of us send our kids to mediocre public schools and hope for the best, but those of sufficient means can hire tutors or send their offspring to private academies. Most of us drink common tap water, but the upscale can demonstrate their superiority with bottled water imported from a foreign spring. You get the idea.
So if the People of Money want to flaunt their sterling status by driving their Lexi and Escalades solo in an uncrowded highway lane, and in the process enrich the state treasury, where’s the harm?
Seeing how the rich live better also inspires the rest of us to work harder and smarter. After all, if you could live a decent life in America without money, our entire economic system could collapse. So why not use our highways to inspire ambition and avarice?
Another argument advanced by the opposition is that “Colorado cannot toll its way out of congestion.” But this is patently false.
I saw so with my own eyes in late April when we visited my parents in Longmont, then drove to DIA to catch a plane for our vacation in the Pacific Northwest. We took the E-470 toll road. It is among the least congested highways I have ever driven, ranking with U.S. 40 west of Maybell and U.S. 50 across Nevada.
Try E-470 yourself if you’re in the neighborhood. You’ll see that there’s nothing like congestion out there. Whether inflated traffic projections were a factor in its construction, I cannot say, but E-470 makes west Texas look overcrowded.
So toll roads can relieve congestion, and the toll lanes on freeways perform a useful social function. If it turns out that these benefits are mere temporary phenomena, and the driving just gets worse no matter what our Transportation Department does, then people will drive less, which means less pollution and a reduced demand for imported petroleum.
So exactly where is the downside to the Lexus lanes?
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
