Not work, or not work yet? There are a couple of ways to make HOVs seem attractive.

I think what's left out of the mix is that the very way Americans live has been structured around cars, highways, and very, very unrestricted travel. Jobs, friends, relatives, shopping, services are all scattered, because travel was easy. There has been little sense in figuring travel and distance into lifestyle considerations.

That won't change very rapidly.

For people to make HOVs work very well would take a change in those lifestyles. That would take time, money, and an interest in doing it. As California demonstrates, that ain't there. It seems Americans will endure almost anything to stay with the single person car, including up to 3 hours of commute each day.

I think the way to encourage a switch is to do one of two things.

Leave the HOVs in place, so that at least some cars can get to where they are going and others can see that happening.

Remove the HOVs, and just wait until gridlock shuts everything down and no one can count on getting anywhere in any reasonable time.

Then folks can get a taste of restricted freedom without the government having anything to do with it. One thing that probably isn't going to happen due to cost is increasing freeway capacity as fast as demand increases.

Arf