Vehicles: high-occupancy toll lanes.

Existing law authorizes the Department of Transportation to designate certain lanes for the exclusive use of high-occupancy vehicles (HOV) , which lanes may also be used, until January 1, 2015, by certain eligible low-emission and hybrid vehicles not carrying the requisite number of passengers otherwise required for the use of HOV lanes if the vehicle displays a valid identifier issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Existing law provides that a vehicle, eligible under these provisions to use HOV lanes, that meets the California's enhanced advanced technology partial zero-emission vehicle (enhanced AT PZEV) standard is not exempt from toll charges imposed on single-occupant vehicles in lanes designated for tolls pursuant to a federally supported value-pricing and transit development program involving high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes conducted by the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This bill would instead exempt, with specified exceptions applicable to passage on designated state highways, all of the low-emission and hybrid vehicles eligible to use HOV lanes under these provisions, including vehicles that meet the enhanced AT PZEV standards, from toll charges imposed on HOT lanes unless prohibited by federal law. The bill would exclude a toll imposed for passage on a toll road or toll highway, that is not an HOT lane, a toll imposed for crossing a state-owned bridge, or, until March 1, 2014, a toll imposed for passage in HOT lanes designated for State Highway Route 10 or 110, from this exemption. The bill would provide that these changes shall be known as the Choose Clean Cars Act of 2012.