91-Lanes ominous stall

91-Lanes

California Private Transportation Company (CPTC) isn’t saying much about its SR-91 Express Lanes operations except that they are doing OK and their number of transponder accounts — needed to use this all-electronic toll facility — continues to grow. The latest count mid-August was 56,000. A state official told us mid-August that the 91-Lanes are running about 115,000 vehicles per week of which a quarter are non-paying HOVs. That 115,000 he said translates into around 20,000/weekday. Ominous? If correct it is because it suggests no growth on the spring, but we are not sure how good the numbers are. CPTC itself isn’t talking.

A company official is quoted as saying that e-tag numbers and vehicle numbers on the 91-Lanes are slightly better than the CPTC planned on and that toll revenues are slighly lower than they projected in their business plan. The difference lies in the unexpectedly high level of free HOV vehicles travelling the Lanes.

A good portion of the 91-Lanes payers are rush-hour travellers paying $2.50 each, so 91-Lanes and Dulles G’way revenue streams are probably not that dissimilar. CPTC however built its facility for $126m compared to over $300m for the G’way, so its debt service is a fraction of the G’way’s. At the same time making a whole business out of congestion relief, while a splendid entrepreneurial exercise and a fascinating and important policy experiment looks to us a dicey and difficult commercial venture.

Background: The SR-91 Express Lanes are a 10ml (16km) long 4-lane facility built by a partnership of Keewit and Greiner construction companies and Cofiroute, the French tollster in the median of an 8-lane freeway through the Santa Ana mountains 40km southwest of downtown Los Angeles. SR-91 connects Orange County (pop. 2.7m) and Riverside Co (pop. ). Before the construction of the Express Lanes the freeway was heavily congested many hours each day with waits of up to 40 minutes at some entry ramps and average speeds of less than 20mph (32km/hr). The Express Lanes provide free rides to vehicles with 3 or more passengers under the HOV program but make their money out of tolls for single and two-occupant vehicles wanting to fly by the stop&go traffic in the ‘free’ lanes. Tolls vary between $2.50 and 25c depending on the time of day and are levied solely by means of electronic transponder. State officials say that in terms of traffic flows the project is a huge success. Congestion has been greatly reduced on the freeway and average speeds increased, and a balance established between the express lanes and free lanes. That the project is popular with users and non-users alike. The political success of SR-91EL has probably been a factor in Riverside Co officials deciding to look at building their SR-71 as a toll road (See “SR-71 Corona toll road?” page XXXX)