Frustrated Drivers: Long Island HOV Lanes Are Littered With Hybrid Cars

NEW YORK(CBSNewYork) -- High Occupancy Vehicle or HOV lanes on Long Island are more crowded than ever. The DOT has the numbers, commuters measure it with frustration, and some blame the drivers of hybrid cars.

Whether they view it as a billion dollar boondoggle or a roaring success, everyone has an opinion on the Long Island Expressway's HOV lane.

HOV applies to vehicles with two or more passengers. Its intent, when unveiled 20-years-ago, was to encourage car pooling, and ease commuting stress.

According to the Department of Transportation, between 7 and 8 a.m. on weekdays 1,715 cars use the HOV lanes. More than a third are hybrid or electric, and those drivers of clean pass, low-emission cars are given a free pass to use HOV even if they have no passengers.

"It's fair, it is obviously eco-friendly," one driver said.

"It's unfair because guys like me traveling it everyday, trying to make time, we're tax payers," another told CBS2's Jennifer McLogan.

Is it time to change the 20-year-old rules?

"There was a good reason for promoting the single occupancy hybrids way back when," former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said.

Levy said now clean pass vehicles are clogging and slowing HOV lanes.

"Now, so many people are purchasing hybrids, I don't think we need that incentive anymore," he said.

That may be affecting car pooling. Ride Share said 10,000 have signed on but only 3,000 are actually sharing rides.

Long Island's highway professionals union said HOV is working.

"The HOV lanes have been a success over the past two decades. Actually the travel demand for the lane exceeded expectations, and the idea of transportation is move people and goods," Marc Herbst, Long Island Contractors Association.

Some want HOV lanes expanded west to Manhattan and east to Riverhead, keeping hybrid rules in place for mileage and pollution benefits.

Proponents of rule changes said existing hybrid owners would be grandfathered in and only new hybrid buyers would be affected.