Dulles Toll Road after $44m Fed stimulus-$s for open road tolling

Posted on Sun, 2009-10-04 23:23

Dulles Toll Road has been put in for $44.1m of stimulus (aka ARRA TIGER) grants from the federal government to fund full open road tolling by its new operator Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA). Called an ORT Corridor Mobility Project it will aim to make toll collection "frictionless" according to a fact sheet provided by MWAA to TOLLROADSnews (see link below.) At the mainline toll plaza there would be toll lane reconstruction and additional lanes.

For now open road tolling is likely to provide for 3 lanes each direction but eventually the full four lanes will need to be covered each direction, so gantry structures are likely to provide for 4 lanes.

New pavement is normally needed to emplace tracking and vehicle classification loops.

Also mentioned as part of the project:

- improved separation between stopping traffic and the highway speed traffic in the central lanes

- extra approach and departure transitions

- upgrades to striping and signage

- a new toll collection system

- incident warning and dynamic message signs

Dulles Toll Road presently has transponder-only express lanes, two in each direction at the one mainline plaza located near Tysons at the eastern end of the pike. The pairs of lanes are divided by flexible lane delineators (see pictures nearby) because the electronic toll equipment is strictly lane-constrained. The system can't handle lane-straddlers - required for true open road tolling.

Dulles Toll Road has four travel lanes each direction. At the mainline toll plaza the pavement widens into five cash toll lanes and twin transponder-only express lanes signed for 35mph (56km/hr) for a total of seven toll lanes for westbound traffic northside. There is a free 2x2 lane Dulles Access Road expressway in the center and another 7 toll lanes on the southside for collecting from eastbound traffic.

Ramp plazas

The toll road is 19km (11.8mi) long and has ten interchanges. There are 19 side or ramp toll plazas to supplement the mainline plaza. Most of these are just two toll lanes, one for cash the other for transponder-equipped vehicles. The ramp plazas see considerable queueing and congestion.

In part this is the result of the slow diamond intersections with multiple signal phases at the cross streets. The toll points are close to the top of the ramps generating lots of weave movements in a short distance.

Eventually all-electronic tolling through both lanes would eliminate this weaving, improving both speed and safety.

However the present plan does nothing for the ramp tolling.

MWAA says that congestion is "particularly high at the mainline toll plaza and near exit ramps."

Cash collection is still 40% of the total.

On average three quarters of users are traveling to work and two thirds of users use the DTR at least four times per week, indicating a potential for increasing transponder toll usage. The road is used almost entirely by local people, making all-electronic tolling an obvious option to be pursued in future.

Airports authority has tollroad control to fund rail

Control of Dulles Toll Road was transferred from Virginia DOT to the metro Washington airports authority Nov 2008 as part of a plan to use toll profits to support debt service on a $5b passenger heavy rail line now under construction in the corridor. An extension of the Washington area Metrorail network, debt service on this rail project seem likely to have priority over improvements to service on the tollroad.

$2.7b of toll revenue debt will be issued during seven years of rail line construction, requiring gross toll revenues to rise from $65m in 2008 to $87m in 2010 and $220m by 2020.

Hence the application by MWAA to the US Government for economic stimulus funds for improving the toll system.

Trouble is the Feds have two reasons for rejecting the application.

First, improvements to electronic toll collection are clearly labor saving, and stimulus grants are supposed to create jobs.

Second the Feds administering the program are prejudiced against Virginia and have been extremely critical of the slow speed with the state has used federal stimulus monies in the past.

Data the feds provided show as of Sept 1 work had only begun on only 16.5% of the $695m of road and bridge projects for which Virginia received federal stimulus funds, compared to 43% nationally.

A letter to Virginia governor Kaine said "your state ranks last among all states (51 out of 51), based on an analysis of the percentage of Recovery Act highway formula funds put out to bid, under contract and under way."

DTR website: http://www.mwaa.com/tollroad

Fact sheet provided by MWAA: