Paul Hsieh over at GeekPress is linking to an article on HOV (and HOT) lanes. We were talking about them just the other day over lunch at the office -- some people love 'em (mostly those who are able to take advantage of them), some people hate 'em (mostly those who'd like to take advantage of them but can't), but few are neutral. Personally I commute work on the bike trail, so HOV lanes don't have a direct impact on me, but I recognize that they're a waste of time and money, and most likely cause more pollution because they force the non-carpoolers to sit in more stop-and-go traffic. I'm not saying there is an easy solution to traffic jams, because there isn't. Probably my libertarian friends would say that the solution is simply to end government control over the roads -- after all, ending government ownership and control is always the solution to a libertarian. Or so some of them seem to think. When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail.