Zipped Up

The state just announced it will now ration the H-1 freeway zipper lanes to cars with three or more occupants, instead of two. The zipper lane, apparently, is too popular, because the stated goal of this move is to get about 300 cars a day out of the zipper lane, so that people who do carpool can get back their superfast commute to town.

I have an idea. A wild, crazy idea. How about we open the zipper lane to everyone who paid for it? Like, you know, taxpayers.

If you paid $50 in advance for a company party and when you got there, your co-worker, the party planner, told you the buffet was for vegetarians only because salads are good for you, you’d be pretty angry (vegetarians, imagine the reverse, an all-meat buffet with no tofu in sight). You might want your money back. Imagine your co-worker, the party planner, telling you, sorry, the money has all been spent on salads, which, as everyone knows, are good for you. You’d think that perhaps your money had been taken under false pretenses. You’d think, perhaps, your co-worker, the party planner, had done something unfair and uncool.

Our state government party planners are too busy bettering us to remember that their job is to serve us. Traffic from the Leeward side is already murder, but the state definition of a successful solution to this problem is to ration scarce roadways even more.

By the way, the zipper lane debuted a decade ago with a three-person-per-car minimum. Everyone stuck in traffic in the non-zipper lanes complained that a perfectly good lane of freeway was going unused.

Deja? Meet vu.

Posted on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 in General | Permalink