James Bennett, a second-year mechanical engineering student, decided to live at home this year to save money, leaving him with a 45-minute commute to school every day along the infamously congested I-405 Freeway.
Bennett tries to carpool with friends to UCLA from his parents’ house in Westchester as much as he can, but his current class schedule makes him a solo commuter most of the time.
He said he finds that, as a commuter, he must give himself a lot of extra time to account for traffic and arrive on time to his classes. Taking the carpool lane home cuts Bennett’s travel time almost in half, but he can only carpool once a week when his schedule matches up with his friend’s or when he drives his girlfriend home.
On Nov. 9, the California Department of Transportation opened a carpool lane along the I-405 Freeway southbound, between where it crosses the I-10 and I-90 freeways, according to a Caltrans statement. Caltrans intends to open the northbound carpool lane along the same stretch of the I-405 before Thanksgiving.
“When there was no carpool lane, there was really no point in making an effort to carpool. There was really no time difference between carpooling and not carpooling,” Bennett said.
Next quarter, Bennett plans to coordinate his schedule with a friend who lives in Westchester to try to take advantage of the new carpool lanes along the I-405.
History professor William Summerhill said he noticed the carpool lanes opened along the I-405 last week during his commute to UCLA from Fullerton, but since he has no choice but to commute alone, he doubts the new carpool lane will affect him, since no one has the same schedule as he.
Summerhill leaves his home around 5 a.m. to arrive on campus by 6 a.m. and leaves campus around 7 p.m. in order to avoid getting stuck in rush hour traffic. Because traffic along the I-405 keeps Summerhill on campus during the day, he often leaves before his two kids wake up and sometimes comes home after they’ve gone to sleep.
Commuting costs not only money but immense time because of congestion, Summerhill said.
“The value of time becomes the killer. How do you get that hour back?” he said.
Summerhill said he did not notice a change in traffic along the I-405 after the opening of the new carpool lane.
“That project looks like it may have been a waste,” he said.
Summerhill added that he thinks congestion pricing would improve the flow of traffic more than carpool lanes.
Congestion pricing would increase the price for traveling on a toll lane based on the amount of congestion on the freeway, said Michael Manville, a doctoral student in urban planning. The point is not to make money but to move as many vehicles as possible, Manville said.
“The only policy we’ve found that reliably reduces traffic congestion is a policy that places a direct price on driving during congested times,” he said.
Commuters should not expect carpool lanes to make a real dent in traffic; the new lane mostly benefits carpoolers, Manville said. But since congestion charges drivers, the prospect of its institution is controversial among elected officials, he said.
However, commuter vanpools traveling to and from UCLA directly benefit from the new lane, said Charles Carter, senior communications analyst for UCLA Transportation.
Angie Fong, who has driven the UCLA Vanpool for 21 years and rides from Anaheim, said she found a 30- to 40-minute reduction in travel time going southbound on the 405 and a 10-minute improvement going northbound. She added that last week, she found traffic in the non-carpool lanes also improved, allowing her to better navigate across lanes of the freeway.