96th street HOV check?

People have told me that the police are checking vehicles at 96th
street for 4 or more passengers even if the vehicles started their trip
in Manhattan, which they are not supposed to do. How are the police
supposed to know which vehicles started in Manhattan? I live in upper
Manhattan and need to take a cab down to the west 70s, and I don't want
to get stopped at 96th street and told I can't go any further without 3
more passengers.

Also, where IS this checkpoint on the west side? It looked from the
news like it was at 96th and Broadway. Why isn't it over near the river
where traffic comes off the westside highway or whatever? Why block
Broadway?

jkl2...@my-deja.com wrote:
> People have told me that the police are checking vehicles at 96th
> street for 4 or more passengers even if the vehicles started their trip
> in Manhattan, which they are not supposed to do.

No, they were doing their jobs properly. They are supposed to check
all southbound traffic regardless of origin. It's a boundary line.

Somewhere there is oversimplification of the rule that implies you can
move around Manhattan freely. You can't. What you can do is move
around freely below 96th street once you legally get below 96th street
(via HOV4), except for specific roadways which are themselves
restricted to HOV4.

To put it in plain language: to cross 96th street southbound you need
four people in the car. But you can drop one off in midtown and
continue south without a replacement, provided you stay off the
specific HOV4 roads.

cs_posting@m writes:

> Somewhere there is oversimplification of the rule that implies you can
> move around Manhattan freely. You can't. What you can do is move
> around freely below 96th street once you legally get below 96th street
> (via HOV4), except for specific roadways which are themselves
> restricted to HOV4.

This oversimplification seems to have been picked up by the news
outlets, unfortunately. Seems like some people don't realize that
there's a lot of Manhattan north of 96th Street.

> To put it in plain language: to cross 96th street southbound you need
> four people in the car. But you can drop one off in midtown and
> continue south without a replacement, provided you stay off the
> specific HOV4 roads.

Yesterday morning they weren't enforcing the HOV-4 restriction on the
Henry Hudson Parkway southbound entrance ramp at 79th Street (the
parkway was technically HOV-4 down to 72nd). Traffic was so light on
both the parkway and on the local streets that there would have been
no point.
--
David of Broadway
New York, NY