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Carpool, or high-occupancy vehicle (HOV), lanes are those special expanses of highway set aside for vehicles with multiple passengers. Touted by environmentalists and urban planners as the answer to pollution and traffic snarls, HOVs often cause resentment in solitary commuters stuck in car-clogged lanes. We cruised around and searched unsuccessfully for a definitive count of states that utilize HOV lanes. Finally, we resigned ourselves to compiling our own list. At the web site of the Federal Highway Administration, we learned there are currently 100 HOV "projects" in the United States. According to our count, these projects are limited to
Washington, D.C., and the following 20 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Washington There is some debate about the relative success of HOV lanes. In some areas where carpool lanes are underutilized, they have been converted back to regular traffic lanes. And recently, the idea of turning HOV lanes into HOT (high-occupancy toll) lanes has surfaced. HOT lanes allow single-occupancy vehicles to pay a special toll to use the carpool lanes.
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