It was mind boggling to sit, day after day, in stalled traffic on the 101 with two empty carpool lanes on my left and four lanes filled with lone drivers all the way between San Jose and San Francisco.
At any rate, I see people abusing it all the time, countless people driving illegally in the car pool lane even though nobody else is in their car -- I see at least one person everyday doing this.
If I were to look around, I would consider mostly remote options or somewhere outside the bay area.
That said, Seattle (and east of Lake Union) is basically as bad (or worse in some cases -- my experience from airport) than the bay area.
