Carpool Lanes
by Joseph Rowlands

Many freeways and major roads have additional lanes set aside for carpools. This acts as a kind of reward system for people to drive with others instead of taking their own cars. The expectation is that it will reduce the number of cars being driven, and it may have environmental impact by reducing the amount of pollution.

The results are not as obvious. Carpool lanes are often empty, or very lightly utilized, while the normal lanes are packed with cars driving slower because of the congestion. This raises an interesting question. What if the lanes currently dedicated to carpools were opened up to general use. Could this reduce congestion and pollution?

The carpool lanes try to optimize these values by trying to change one of many variables. They try to increase the number of people who carpool in order to reduce the total number of cars. Certainly the total number of cars is an important factor in terms of pollution and congestion, but it isn't the only one. The number of lanes is an additional, and important, factor. Using a large percentage of the lanes as an incentive to reduce the total cars on the road is one way to utilize them. The other is to use the lanes to improve overall speed and reduce congestion.

Which is better? Which would have a greater reduction in pollution and decrease time stuck in traffic? It's not obvious, especially given how few people use the carpool lanes, that they are the most efficient use of the lanes for optimizing these goals.

What's more interesting is the moral question involved. What if the studies were able to show that the lane was better utilized for general traffic, and even with the increased number of cars on the road the speed would increase and the pollution would decrease? Would politicians or members of the public prefer to switch?

Obviously those who carpool would have an incentive to keep the carpool lane. They get to drive much faster and avoid traffic. It doesn't matter what reason they are carpooling. Some might be doing it for the advantage of using the lanes, and others might be doing it to save gas, while others might do it because someone doesn't know how to drive and so the other drives for them. Regardless of the reason, the small group of people who regularly benefit from the carpool lane will have an incentive to want it to continue to be used in that way.

What about everyone else? You might think they would prefer to get rid of the carpool requirements. Certainly there is some incentive there as well.

But aside from these practical benefits, there's a question of what is the best public policy. And there are two very different approaches.

One approach focus on the consequences. If the goal is to reduce congestion and pollution, the answer is simple. Whichever policy actually reduces congestion and pollution the most should be favored. That's the goal, and that's the means by which we should judge the policies. If that means getting rid of the carpool restrictions, then that's the best policy.   It leads to the best result.

The other approach focuses on the morality of the results. This approach would view people who carpool as being moral for making a personal choice, with a possible sacrifice, in order to achieve the socially desirable goal. That is considered the morally appropriate behavior, and that determines the morally preferable choice.

In this latter view, there's nothing morally good about removing the carpool restriction. While the result may be better in terms of pollution and congestion, it is an unintentional result. People aren't changing their values and their actions to help the environment. They are acting in their normal, self-centered way. Since there's no adoption of new values and actions, there's no improvement in morality.

By contrast, encouraging people to carpool is intended to change people's hearts and minds about how they should act. Carpooling is seen as a virtuous activity. People are making sacrifices for a greater moral value. So while in practice there may be worse pollution and congestion, any benefits are moral benefits, and the costs can be assigned to the lack of morality among the non-carpool drivers. This means that the carpool lane approach is promoting a more moral society.

From this perspective, removing the carpool restriction would be rewarding selfish behavior. The only reason it would reduce congestion and pollution is that not enough people are carpooling. There's a dearth of moral people. And by changing the policy to get rid of carpool restrictions, it is establishing selfishness as the expected policy. Instead of trying to get people to be moral, it is throwing your hands up and surrendering to the selfish impulses of the people.

So in this view, it is better to lead to non-optimal results that rewards virtuous behavior even if the consequences are worse in terms of socially desirable results. This may seem a little strange, especially if it is those desired results that are the moral justifications for carpooling.

If that's the moral goal, why are polices that undermine it considered moral? It's because of the view of morality. It is only considered moral if you choose to do it for the right reason.   There's no moral credit earned by all of the single drivers in the more efficient system. The only moral credit goes to those people who intentionally modify their behavior specifically for the moral value.

This leads to another problem, though. If you are rewarding people for carpooling, aren't they carpooling because of the faster lane? They aren't really sacrificing. They aren't really choosing moral behavior. They aren't really acting to pursue the goal of less pollution or overall congestion. They are just trying to benefit themselves.

That means that you could argue that the carpool lanes actually reduce the moral credit given out. The fact that they benefit either disqualifies or reduces the moral credit earned. Whereas in a world without carpool lanes, someone who chooses to carpool to help the environment would be given full moral credit, since he has no ulterior motive.

This is all confused because of the view of morality. The view is that morality requires you to accept "higher" values above your own life, like the environment, and requires you to make sacrifices for it. Since you are making a real sacrifice, your life is hurt more than helped by these values and actions. What makes up for it is the feeling that you are moral, and that all comes down to moral credit. You get moral credit for acting against your own interest in the pursuit of an accept moral goal.

In the carpool lane, the view of morality is that you should sacrifice your own convenience and control for the sake of the environment. You get moral credit if you do it. And when it comes to moral policy, the policy that encourages moral behavior is often consider the moral policy.

So while we might find that it is practical to get rid of carpool restrictions, and that that policy would be promote the shared goals, we could still expect many politicians and members of the public to argue against it on moral grounds. And this is despite the fact that the results may be worse or that carpool lanes distorts or perverts the moral intent of carpool drivers.

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