MTA votes to levy toll on some carpool lanes

* Single-occupant cars probably would be allowed in the carpool lanes but would have to pay a toll, as would cars with two people in them.

* Hybrids now allowed in carpool lanes with only a single occupant also would have to pay to use toll lanes.

* Vehicles with three or more passengers might get to use the toll lanes for free. That item will have to be negotiated with federal officials.

Several MTA board members -- led by Villaraigosa and one of his appointees, Richard Katz -- say they don't want to punish carpoolers who are already doing a good thing.

Over the last year, the U.S. Transportation Department has been prodding cities and states to install more toll lanes, providing federal money to metropolitan areas willing to give them a try.

In a nationwide competition for the money last year, Los Angeles County was eliminated in the first round after it committed only to study congestion pricing because tolls are controversial in a state that takes pride in having "freeways."

So local officials reapplied in December and struck gold after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan was sunk by the New York state Legislature. That freed up money for Los Angeles County, which federal officials have described as one of the nation's preeminent laboratories for traffic.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters will hold a news conference in Los Angeles today to announce the deal, first reported in The Times on Thursday.

The hope among local officials is that the tolls and new express bus service would reduce the number of solo drivers and help everyone else on the freeway go much faster. And some area residents said they're eager to see it.

"All the voluntary measures they've tried to get people to drive less aren't working," said Colin Bogart, 39, of Hollywood.

Others aren't so sure. Eric Sandberg, 28, who commutes from Phelan, near Victorville, to his job with the Arcadia Unified School District each day -- with a stop to drop off his carpooling partner in Pomona -- said the plan would either overwhelm the carpool lanes with willing buyers or force existing carpoolers into the already congested regular lanes.

Still, would he pay to ease his commute?

"It would have to be fairly cheap," he said. "It costs me enough to get to work as it is with gas prices."

--

steve.hymon@latimes.com