Getting There: Car pool lanes are meant as an incentive

Question: Rick Downer wonders why vehicles carrying more than one person are allowed to use the regular lanes?

"I don't mind paying taxes to build High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes as long as the HOVs use them, but daily I see HOVs in the regular lanes when their lane is wide open," he says.

He thinks people with more than one person in their vehicles should be required to use HOV lanes.

And the change should be called the Lane Fairness and Road Rage Reduction Act, he said.

Answer: Washington Department of Transportation spokesman Noel Brady says HOV lanes were created to give commuters an incentive to car pool or take the bus.

Vehicles with passengers could be forced to use HOV lanes when traffic is heavy enough. But it would be hard to decide what the threshold should be.

At any rate, he said, Downer is most likely seeing drivers with passengers in regular lanes when there isn't much traffic. When there is a lot of traffic, drivers who qualify for the car pool lanes usually head there, anyway.

Question: Holly Henson has a question about the new High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes, which allow drivers with no passengers to use HOV lanes between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. by paying a fee.

Henson wonders if solo drivers still can use HOT lanes between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Answer: Brady says the HOT lanes are in effect at the same times as car pool lanes -- between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. Outside those hours, anyone can use the HOT lanes free of charge.

There's no need to cover a transponder, which deducts money from a prepaid account, between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. The HOT lane system is shut off, and no transponders will be detected or charged during those hours.

Question: Lorie Lucky commutes from Capitol Hill to Mercer Island and she wonders about the yellow and orange lights flashing in the Interstate 90 tunnel sometimes.

"I've never figured out what they are for," she says. "This week they were on twice as I went through the tunnel about 8:45 a.m. The first time I thought perhaps there was an accident on the bridge, or a blocking vehicle, but ... nada."

Answer: Don Hewitt, the state DOT's radio and tunnels supervisor in the Northwest region, said the lights ordinarily warn drivers of possible incidents or slowdowns -- such as those caused by disabled vehicles or road crews.

Staff members at the department's traffic management center, which monitors the tunnels by camera 24 hours a day, control the lights.

It might seem like there's no reason for the lights to blink but the state keeps them flashing until the tunnel operators can confirm an accident has been cleared.

In addition, the tunnel lights blink when Transportation Department maintenance crews are working inside, or when the express lanes are being switched.

At other times, the lights also flash when they are being tested.

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