Cattle Drive

The government of Ontario has just opened High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) on its 403 and 404 highways. These lanes are designed to help ease traffic on local highways by giving people who carpool a special lane. A car with a minimum of two people can drive in these lanes and it is claimed that they can shave up to 30min off a drive during the peak of rush hour.

I come to wonder though. What is the real purpose of these lanes. Fines for driving in these lanes with only one person in the car are quite steep. Up to $500. This seems like a lot when fines for more dangerous offenses (ie speeding) are much lower. It seems that the government of Ontario is trying to make another cash cow on fines for a realtively minor offense.

The lanes themselves are really only a bandaid solution to a much larger problem. That problem is that too many people with cars are coming into the GTA. Not everybody can carpool. There is nobody I know that takes the same route as I do so who do I carpool with? HOV lanes are a good short term idea but the money would have been better spent improving other types of transit.