Bidding For The Carpool Lane On eBay

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the interesting-uses dept

We’ve had stories of governments using eBay to auction off surplus materials and items confiscated at airports, but here’s a different sort of plan. Some legislators up in Washington state are interested in using eBay to auction off permits for the carpool lane. They figure it can help raise some money, and also will show just how much people value the carpool lane. Of course, the value decreases as they sell more of these special permits for single occupants, and the lane gets more crowded. However, for those with a regular commute, who are used to sitting there watching the carpooled cars zip by, I imagine it will be pretty tempting. The legislators seem to mostly be hoping for corporations to buy the permits – specifically thinking that delivery companies like FedEx and UPS would be most interested. Of course, this is a bit similar to ideas I’ve seen to charge varying toll rates for different hours of the day – but using eBay as the marketplace for this sort of thing is new. If this goes through, though, I wonder how long it will take to get people to forge the permits (and sell the forgeries on eBay as well).