TRB misrepresent I-15, 91X

The latest TR NEWS (Jan-Feb 2000, #206, p39) from the Transp Research Board (TRB) features at length its “1999 Field Visit Program” in which TRB staff visit transport projects of interest around the country. The 18-page report covers calendar year 1999, it says. On ‘value pricing’ the field visitor staff say that in the I-15 “HOV” lanes in San Diego solo drivers can “purchase a monthly permit” to buy their way into the facility. And “HOT lanes,” it says, have been implemented on CA-91 with carpoolers going free in what is otherwise a toll facility.

Wrong on all counts!

There are no monthly permits on I-15, and there are no free rides for carpoolers on the 91-X lanes. I-15 solo drivers pay trip by trip, not monthly, and on 91-X carpoolers pay a half toll. And the 91X lanes are toll express lanes not HOT lanes, a term which implies the carpoolers go free. Everyone pays some toll there.

Now a field trip in 1997 might have found a monthly pass in effect for solo drivers wanting to drive the I-15 HOT lanes, but from March 31 1998 it has been tolling by trip with dynamic pricing. And while carpoolers (HOV3+) at first went free on the 91X lanes, from Jan 1, 1998 they began paying half-tolls.

Guys, if you go goofing off on that big field trip, and your research consists of relying on the memory of the guy over the cubicle partition back in the Green Building in DC, there’s always your TRB library to fall back on. They have a subscription to TOLL ROADS NEWSLETTER where you can get such facts.