I really can't think of any reason why it should ever be closed aside from the one **** face who has the job of driving up and down in the afternoon to open the gates

bc you touch yourself at night

quote:

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bc you touch yourself at night

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Not just at night. Morning, lunch, etc

Both directions at the same time?

Gives them a few hours where they don't have to worry about violators/wrecks/etc?

Tax savings for you and me! Cha-ching

I wonder about this too.

Weird

They need a little time to make sure all of the cars are out so they can change the direction. Approx an hour

The reason that they close it longer is two fold:

1) There is not sufficient delay on the main lanes to create enough demand on the HOV in other words most people would rather take the main lanes if traffic is not bad. Main lanes are preferable to most becasue there is more access.

2) It gives them a few hours to do maintenance if needed. Otherwise it would all have to be done at night.

More to the point- why aren't there a couple HOV lanes in each direction open 24/7? On every freeway.

Because there are not enough HOVs and the access to HOVs suck for the trips that most drivers want to take. As it is now, we barely exceed the capacity of one lane as is shown when you see a 3+ restriction like on 290 HOV in the peak hour.

If you could get more people to car pool it would could work, but carpooling only really makes sense in the peak hour when people are going to and from work.

TxDOT will not build any more single lane barrier separated HOVs. They will not extend the system. They may rebuild as is. The more preffered option is a diamong lane in each direction like you see on the suburban freeways. These do not really work in the urban area where METRO wants access via T ramps to their park and rides.