The Nevada Department of Transportation’s defense of local carpool lanes is laughable

I laughed at the the Nevada Department of Transportation’s defense of carpool lanes created by Project Neon (“Carpool lanes help fast tract valley traffic,” Sunday Review-Journal). NDOT spokesman Tony Illia touts improved air quality and fuel savings as justification. This is preposterous.

Carpooling works in concentrated metropolitan areas, not in areas dominated by urban sprawl. The Las Vegas Valley does not lend itself to carpooling. From Boulder City to Henderson to Summerlin to North Las Vegas, people live in one area and work in another. Furthermore, as a 24-hour town with shift workers, finding a carpool buddy is highly unlikely.

Mr. Illia acknowledges NDOT’s dreadful design of the current highway system, requiring “weave-and-merge” actions to change freeways. Project Neon will magically change this for the tiny percent of carpoolers by constructing 22 miles of HOV lanes and its half-mile flyover connector. Cue the music: Carpoolers will enjoy a stress-free ride at increased speed, bringing their work day to a glorious end. Ah, the panacea for carpoolers.

Project Neon is projected to cost $1 billion tax dollars and will improve Nevada’s most heavily traveled section of highway. About 300,000 brave, taxpaying souls travel it daily, and with population and tourism on the rise, highway congestion will increase. But HOV lanes benefit few people. They do not reduce gridlock, as Mr. Illia maintains. The vast, vast taxpaying majority sit in heavy traffic, disgusted and outraged by the lightly used HOV lanes.

Let common sense reign and open all lanes to all drivers.