Q. Hi, Honk. Last week, we had to go into Los Angeles, using the 110 freeway’s carpool lanes. It looks as if the lanes are being converted into FasTrak lanes. Will the lanes be strictly FasTrak or a combination?

– Nancy Harrigan, Westminster

A. Does Randy Newman love L.A. enough to pay to drive into downtown?

Beginning in the fall, the Harbor Freeway’s carpool lanes, the ones that rise to upper decks, will go FasTrak for a yearlong pilot program.

Solo drivers will be able to pay a quarter to $1.40 a mile, depending on the congestion, to skirt the traffic below. Motorists with a passenger, buses and motorcyclists will be able to use the lanes for free.

But everyone will have to have a transponder, and the ones used for the 241 and 73 will be fine if you are paying.

If you qualify to ride for free, you will need to exchange yours for a special transponder with a switch that can be manually moved to indicate the number of passengers.

These Metro ExpressLanes will go 11 miles in both directions, from just north of I-405 to just beyond the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

There are two carpool lanes in each direction that have room to absorb more vehicles, said Rick Jager of Los Angeles County Metro.

If solo drivers pay, they get out of the way of cheapskates like Honk in the regular lanes – and they raise cash for the system. In the first full year of the 110 and later the 10 having these lanes, $20 million is projected to be collected, with the money going to those freeways’ improvements.

A possible option is for I-405, from I-605 to the 73 toll road, to someday have a similar setup.

Q. Could you do all of us a HUGE favor and remind drivers that by the time you reach the top of the freeway on-ramp your speed should be the same as the drivers in the slow lane?

And it is incumbent upon you to adjust YOUR speed in order to fall in front or behind the cars.

Too many drivers seem to think that the on-ramp is their own private lane, and they just drift into the slow lane going 40 mph and expect that traffic already on the freeway adjust speeds or change lanes.

– Vicki Keller, Laguna Hills

A. “She is right on,” said Gabe Montoya, a California Highway Patrol officer and spokesman. “Honestly, to get on a freeway, you can’t be timid. That ramp is built so you pick up speed.”

Drivers who fail to smoothly merge cause accidents and congestion, Montoya said.

Got a question? Contact Honk at honk@ocregister.com. See Honk online: ocregister.com/honk.