From this perspective, California seems like an unlikely place to experiment with congestion pricing. And yet the HOT lanes on SR 91, far from being a source of outrage, have so far proven extremely popular. Californians' animosity towards tolls is being outweighed by other considerations. Because the populous regions of Southern California spread over such a huge territory, mass transit is less effective than it is in a more densely populated metropolitan area like New York City. If you work in Costa Mesa and live in Riverside, as some of the people who use SR 91 do, transportation solutions that are intended to bring commuters from the suburbs to the skyscrapers of Los Angeles provide no help at all.
Expressways are many people's only option.
Southern California is not the only place where commuter patterns have become less predictable. Throughout the United States and Europe, industrial parks in what were once residential suburbs have become increasingly popular with businesses unwilling to pay the high costs of urban office space. But it is so widespread these days that rush hour in most metropolitan areas no longer proceeds in one direction. Many commuters never go into the center of cities at all, traveling instead from one suburb to another. Because this is what most of the people who use SR 91 are doing, the success of its HOT lanes is a reflection of the complex traffic problems of the area this expressway serves.