We are already paying for a car pool lane that we can't use.  We've paid for this lane!  This lane should be open to anyone during commute times and used for only one person during non-commute hours.  This would relieve a lot of conjestion.  It horrible to see such traffic jams on the freeways when there is a lane completely open waiting for someone with more than one in the car to come along and use it.  These rules for this lane need to be reversed!

This poll is stacked.

Really.  It's like being asked, "Have you stopped beating your wife, yet?"   The two choices are almost as poor as this Presidential elecion, and only a cut above the once-ubiquitous, "Paper or plastic?"

Let's face it: NEITHER of the two possible answers is desirable.  Seriously.  Is the choice REALLY between "spend mony on an HOT lane" and "spend money on public transit"?

What about -- and forgive my brilliance, here -- "spend money on a normal traffic lane"?  Where's the crime in THAT reasonable idea??

The implication, here, is this:
The money cannot be spent unless the project involves some kind of bureaucratic social engineering.

Of course, my baloney detector is telling me that last point is really the dirty little secret behind this, and -- quite frankly --- under THOSE terms, I'd opine we've no business spending the money at all.

But, let's take a minute, here, to kill off this ridiculous HOT lane garbage.

Say we have a freeway with three normal traffic lanes, none of them HOV lanes.

Since we have a congestion problem during peak traffic hours, we decide to add a fourth lane to provide relief; increasing the carrying capacity of our freeway by 33 percent.  Looking at that another way, we're distributing the same number of cars across 33% more pavement, so ~25% of the traffic will flow down each lane.

This is a GOOD THING; everyone gets down the road faster, so traffic doesn't stack up like it did before.   Since the idea is, ostensibly at least, to "curb traffic", this solution looks like a good one.

Hold on, though, because here comes a nameless government bureaucrat with a typically bureaucratic idea:
"What WE need to do is find a way to make some revenue off of this dilemma.  YEAH,  THAT'S the ticket!  Revenue!  We'll lay down another lane, sure, but we'll charge money to use it!  Ta-DA!"

So, before the concrete has time to set up -- BLATT!! -- we slap an HOT restriction on our brand new strip of pavement.

"HA!  You foolish sheeple!  You paid taxes to build this; NOW you shall pay even MORE to use it!!   AAaah-HA-HA-HA-ha-ha-ha-hahaaaa!!"  [You know, Heath Ledger could have done that line real justice.]

Magic question time:
What percentage of drivers who already paid for the new lane will be willing to pay more to use the new lane?

Do you realize that, unless the lane usage exceeds 25%, which is not bloody likely, the HOT restirction will DIMINISH the throughput of the new lane?

Left wide open as a regular lane, just like the original three, our new lane can carry 25% of the traffic on the freeway.  Making it an HOT lane will all but guarantee that the lane will never see that level of usage; essentially meaning that we all pay FULL PRICE for something that isn't going to be fully utilized.

You wouldn't buy an LCD TV if only 80% of the screen worked.

You wouldn't buy a new car if it had only three out the four wheels.

Heck, you wouldn't buy a dozen eggs if there were only eleven in the box.

So why in Sam Hill would anyone think it sane to ask taxpayers to pay 100% for a slab of concrete that ~90% of them won't want to PAY EVEN MORE to use??

The idea is absurd on its face.

Having persevered with me this far, for which I thank you, now do yourself a favor:  call your favorite Bay Area politician and tell them that, as a taxpayer, you'll have none of this hare-brained HOT lane scheme.