" quick and inexpensive way of mitigating traffic "

inexpensive to the tune of $23M
quick as in "begin in January (219) and be completed in the summer of 2021"

Re: efficacy, do express lanes result in an increase or decrease of car pooling?

These always confuse me and I stay away from them even if there are more people in the car.

Can a car with four people use the lanes without Fastrack? I have never found a definitive answer.

"Rail has proven to be not the technology of the future, it's the technology of the past," McAlister said.

John McAlister at home: "This plant is not doing so well. Why should I bother watering it?"

"The $23.5 million contract for the project --- calls for replacing the existing carpool lanes with express lanes on Highway 101 from Highway 237 to the San Mateo County line."

Comment: No new lanes to relieve traffic. Just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while it sinks rapidly. Naturally, they get much-needed revenue from those who are willing and able to fork out the $$$ while the rest of commuters stew.

Question: Were Mountain View and Palo Alto consulted on this, or was it just a fait accompli by the VTA in which MV and PA had no say in the final outcome?

Thanks for another brilliant "congestion management" project to push traffic from 101 onto Mountain View and Palo Alto neighborhood streets from the folks who brought us "traffic diets" and "road furniture" that have already turned our streets into parking lots -- and that's before all the new construction of the massive offices start.

The huge disparity between the $23.5 million that this project will cost, and the mere $324k in revenue raised by the earlier phases suggest that it will be decades before this project is paid for by tolls. On top of that, this project will obviously worsen traffic conditions during construction and make the carpool lanes more crowded, all of which severely REDUCES the incentives to carpool. This is a step backwards.

Not only expanding toll line we need to bring light rail to La Avenida over stevens creek. That will eliminate traffic gridlock. For Companies in north of 101 such as Microsoft, Google, Amphitheater and movie goers.I have meant to go council meeting but does not have time to go on Tuesday night.

Stop subsidizing electric cars with gas taxes. Those cars wear on the road surfaces as much as, if not more, than traditional cars. The federal tax subsidies are also unfair.
How much revenue was collected from ticketed single drivers in the carpool lanes? Where does that money go?

I find the notion of express lanes ridiculous. Initially is started out as car pool lanes to encourage car pooling, but that increases traffic for most people, since it takes a lane out of service. Since nothing the government does is ever undone, instead of removing carpool lanes when it's clear they're a failure, the government instead uses the less congested car pool lanes as a reward for people who bought hybrids, and then electric cars - people who are wealthier than average, since those cars are more expensive then average. Now, all pretense is gone, we simply let people who don't care to sit in traffic, and have the money to do so, to avoid it. Judging by the toll prices on 680, this is multiple dollars per mile. Bah! Just scrap the lanes and let everyone use all the lanes. Nobody carpooled, and not everyone could afford an electric car.

I'm all for this express lane with congestion pricing. It's counterintuitive, but all of the research and evidence from other regions is conclusive: congestion pricing actually improve outcomes for everyone, by encouraging alternate modes of transit and time-shifting for those who can, which reduces traffic for everyone, and it provides an express option for those who need it (say, someone running late to the airport). and we all benefit from a bit of extra public transportation funds.

I hope they are exploring expanding this program to more lanes.

If the goal is to use all the lanes to “capacity” how does that help carpoolers and future payers of this doomed system. We’ll all be in a jammed mess.

I respectfully disagree with the comment that we all benefit from public transportation funding. We end up subsidizing train and bus riders. Those modes of transportation are not tenable for those who must travel to numerous locations each workday. Gridlock starts at 6AM and goes to 8PM, with a few hours respite.
What has happened to the $20 per car per year fee collected by the county?

Too many people driving alone in their own cars here in the Bay Area. None of the highway infrastructures were built to handle this many cars on the roads. Time to implement a gas tax and/or coding to control folks to drive their vehicles only on certain days of the week. Mass transit here sucks and will never catch-up to other countries such as Singapore, Japan or the U.K. I'm not even sure why that ugly VTA is still occupying the roadways, especially around the Mathilda side of Sunnyvale and surrounding areas. Most of the time I see those ugly, unappealing trains they are only half-full of passengers.

Back in 2006, toll use of express lanes was originally sold as a way to generate revenue.

Sounds like it didn’t work. 324K per 3 months isn’t much.

On the other hand, 25 million for 14% of a lane on 7 miles of 101 is much less expensive than any other method of adding capacity. Imaging the cost to acquire land for an extra lane along that stretch.