The ride North has been smooth, yesterday, Northbound at about 5 p.m., never hit the brakes. South still sucks. The pattern for years was south in the am it jammed up at the 78 and eased at via rancho, in the evening it jammed up in r/b, carmel mtn and eased at via rancho. The new lanes are only open half way, through R/B, but it’s not done to the 78 yet so we will have to wait and see. I have thought about getting a fastrack, the advertised price has been 50 cents to 1.50 but I know that is just so they can get people using it. The 91 freeway fastrack can be upwards of $10 sometimes.
I still think they should scrap carpool lanes altogether and make them shipping lanes for trucks and busses on 5 and 15, so they never intermingle with small vehicle traffic. Trucks are usually making a long trip, don’t get on/off much, to have them in the slow lane complicating merging seems stupid. With cars getting smaller and smaller, it would be safer to have them in their own lane.
