The Mercury News runs a daily Q&A on reader questions regarding traffic, road and public transit construction and even basic driving techniques and laws that is often interesting. However, today’s column includes a letter about the possibility of allowing, for a non-trivial fee, single occupancy vehicles into the commuter lanes and not for the first time Roadshow writer Gary Richards ducks the asked question. I wrote him to ask why:
Gary,
I’m a little disappointed that twice now, including today, I’ve seen you respond to questions regarding the economic equality of government plans to offer single vehicle drivers access to HOV lanes for a few dollars by not addressing this point but sloughing the writers off with fairly vague comments like “seems to be working” elsewhere. Roadshow is your column and I’m not trying to interfere with the choices you and your editors make on which letters to print and answer but if you do print somebody’s question I think you should at least actually answer their question instead of one they didn’t ask.
Can you explain the criteria for judging the effectiveness of the San Diego and Houston efforts that lead to your answer? That is, what does “working” mean in this context? More importantly to me, how are the government officials making this decision justifying what Mark Mayol (rightly) calls “the separation of the haves and have-not?”
BillSaysThis 