Traffic solution?

The city of Calgary is seriously considering creating 220km of road reserved for car-poolers. While I have nothing but great experiences with HOV lanes, having experienced them in a big way on my various car trips to Los Angeles, I wonder how effective HOV lanes will be in our city. The thing that I find rather amusing about Calgary is that billions were spent making Calgary car-friendly by turning Crowchild, Glenmore, Beddington and parts of MacLeod and McKnight Trails into expressways. Now the city wants to punish car owners by restricting who can use certain roadways. If the city had instead spent more money making the transit network able to handle much more capacity in a short period of time, improved bus routes by adding much needed buses and improved routes by having a bus come more often on every route, it would have offered commuters a much improved alternative to driving.

In my view, this is Calgary's biggest problem. We still have bus routes where the bus only comes every 50 minutes. If you miss that bus, guess what? We still have buses arriving at stops too full to accept more riders, with no emptier bus trailing behind. We still have bus routes that meander through neighbourhoods making it so that getting across town can take hours. We still have a system that only excels at getting people into and out of downtown. This doesn't help anyone working on the other side of the city. We still have a light rail system where trains have to stop downtown for regular road traffic. The train traffic jams that occur downtown are a sight to behold. Every train should get a green light as soon as it approaches an intersection. Better yet, trains should be put underground or elevated to give them unobstructed access through the downtown core. Train routes tend to be expanded long after outlying neighbourhoods have become car-centric. Our light rail doesn't service the airport. Transit parking lots that charge money to park leave a horrible taste in users' mouths - especially when there aren't even enough spots to go around. If transit can't make money in a city of 1 million +, then you're doing it wrong.