A closer look is needed at the HOV on the LIE

When a lane of the 17.3-mile portion of Interstates 95 and 395 in Northern Virginia, the Shirley Highway, became the first for high-occupancy vehicles in the United States, spiraling oil prices were as much a justification as traffic congestion. 

The Shirley Highway’s bus lane was the first on a U.S. urban highway used exclusively by buses when it opened in 1969. The change opening the bus-rapid transit lane to vehicles with four or more occupants came in December 1973. 

Nearly 50 years later, with rules for HOV lanes slated to change dramatically in a few years, it’s time to reexamine what our goals related to traffic patterns and fossil-fuel consumption and vehicle occupancy and commuting and the environment ought to be, and how to best achieve them.

In 2006, New York’s Clean Pass program was launched to boost adoption of energy-efficient vehicles by allowing them to motor along the Long Island Expressway’s 40-mile stretch of HOV lanes, from Medford to the Queens border. The program has evolved, and starting this past February only plug-in electrics, plug-in hybrids, and vehicles powered by other alternative fuels could be issued new “Clean Pass” stickers granting single-occupancy privileges in the HOV lane.

And in 2025, federal law is set to boot even those: Barring an extension from Congress, the only golden ticket into the HOV of the LIE will be a second rider.

The reasoning is that incentivizing electric vehicles has worked, and is picking up speed: More than 33,000 electric vehicles are registered on Long Island; 180,000 are expected by 2027. With state and federal tax incentives, demand for electric vehicles is outpacing supply. And with New York requiring all cars and trucks sold here be zero-emission by 2035, those vehicles’ automatic access to the HOV has to end sometime, right?

Federal regulations for HOV lanes on interstates say they must maintain a 45-mph average speed a minimum of 90% of the time during peak hours to maintain the restriction. Experts say there is still capacity in the LIE lanes on that basis. Using that metric to decide when to push Clean Pass holders out of the lanes makes more sense than an arbitrary date.

But policies on HOV lanes and transportation should answer broader questions about what we want to incentivize and what tools can be brought to bear.

• Do alternative-fuel vehicles still need to be incentivized via HOV policy?
• Is ease of car travel desirable if it de-incentivizes public transportation use?
• How much should housing policies that force long commutes be reconsidered as part of the travel conundrum?
• Does charging for express-lane access make sense?

In three years, New York’s HOV policy is set to change. Ideally, by then, we’d know what we truly want it to achieve, and how it can best do so.