Blah blah blah. You simply refuse to acknowledge that markets work. You need to go take Econ 101, and learn why price is an efficient way of regulating demand.It's failing to scale.
It increases the average speed of whoever uses the lane, that's for sure.
Ahh, so we're talking income here and not wealth; oftentimes one does not dictate the other. Besides that, income does not necessarily point to productivity. Even assuming those who inherited their wealth for some reason avoid the priority lane and those who do make the most are also the most productive on average, the increased congestion in non-priority lanes would more than offset any benefit versus opening the lane to everyone. The only actual benefit to having a HOT lane versus a regular lane is that it is a source of income for the government to help account for their fiscal irresponsibility.
Here is what will happen. The HOT lane will be free for certain people. Firemen, police services, paramedics, etc.... Makes sense that these people would be granted free access to the HOT lane. But then they'll open it up to other public sector employees. Politicans; why not? They're big important men/women responsible for running the country after all. Then other public sector workers will receive the same perk. I mean, any tolls collected from these people go right back into the public coffers anyway, so lets grant them compensated access to the priority lane. As if public sector employees didn't already have enough advantage over their private counterparts. Need has now gone right out the window in exchange for granting priority access to the wealthy and those with the right connections. Ahhh, plutocracy at work!
Democratic societies should not have their governments run like that.
The benefit of a HOT lane is that it moves higher value traffic faster, defined as high occupancy vehicles plus those who feel paying for speed is worthwhile.
And yes. Wealth is how we judge value. Deal with it.