Carpool Lanes

Advancing their experiment with toll roads, Los Angeles County transportation officials are considering more projects for local freeways ? including a heavily congested freeway on the Westside ? that would allow solo motorists to pay to use carpool lanes. A preliminary study by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has recommended that five locations be explored in detail for the installation of high-occupancy toll lanes or so-called HOT lanes. The MTA's ad hoc congestion-pricing committee is set to discuss the matter Wednesday.

GOP gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman paints rival Jerry Brown as a machine Democrat who as governor decades ago spent big and coddled liberal interests while pursuing an expansive role for government. Brown says he was a deficit hawk who deftly managed the state's finances and a world-class educational system. Neither of the conflicting portrayals, featured in the battle the two have been waging on California's airwaves, is exactly how those eight years went. Brown disdained political convention and protocol and refused to govern as a run-of-the-mill liberal.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a measure Monday allowing tens of thousands more Californians with environmentally friendly cars to drive solo in carpool lanes, while state lawmakers moved closer to approving reforms inspired by the eye-popping salaries of Bell city officials. Among the measures meant to crack down on abuse of public trust by government officials are three bills passed by the Senate that would limit how quickly local leaders can raise their own salaries, put a cap on their pensions and refund excess property taxes charged to Bell residents.

Transportation officials are about to embark on major construction of a $1-billion widening of the 405 Freeway through the Sepulveda Pass, the final leg in their campaign to create continuous carpool lanes between Orange County and the San Fernando Valley. But they admit that a relatively small percentage of commuters will share in the full benefits of the project. The extra lane will allow carpoolers and some drivers of hybrid vehicles to traverse the entire 405 -- from the 5 Freeway in Irvine to the 5 Freeway near Sylmar -- using carpool lanes.

Baldwin Park Mayor Manuel Lozano has a catchphrase for how you know you're in his city. "If you want to know where Baldwin Park is, if you're traveling either east or west on the 10 Freeway and you come to a complete stop, you know you're in Baldwin Park," he says. The area bottlenecks at rush hour, Lozano said, with commuters traveling between Los Angeles and San Bernardino County. Sometimes, he said, it's so bad that commuters pull over and stop at In-N-Out Burger to pass the time, hoping the congestion eases.

The days may be numbered for hybrid car owners who have enjoyed traveling solo in California's carpool lanes. The stickers granting that privilege to 85,000 hybrid owners are set to expire Jan. 1, 2011. There are proposals in Sacramento to extend the deadline, but they would exclude most of the vehicles that originally qualified for the program, such as the Toyota Prius, the Honda Civic hybrid and the original Honda Insight. "We're bummed," said Cathy Margolin, president of the 250-member Orange County Prius Club.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Thursday set the tolls that for the first time will allow solo motorists to drive in carpool lanes on two of the region's most congested freeways. Los Angeles' first experiment with so-called congestion-based pricing is slated to begin in late 2010 or early 2011.

Construction began Friday on the last leg of a carpool lane for the northbound San Diego Freeway through western Los Angeles, a $1-billion project designed to ease congestion on one of the busiest traffic corridors in the nation.