hot lanes

Transurban-Fluor's rebuild of 14 of the busiest miles of the Washington DC Capital Beltway must be one of the most difficult construction management jobs currently under way in the country. The joint venture toll concessionaire is rebuilding a 2x4 lane expressway into 2x 6 lanes, the extra two lanes each direction to be High Occupancy/or Toll (HOT) lanes with the traffic managed for free flow with dynamic pricing.

The Georgia I-85 toll express lanes (GA85XL) now in their eighth week of operation continue to attract more patronage, but tolls while growing, are still low per mile.  We've worked on seven full weeks of data. Average weekday traffic in the variably priced lanes is now 11,210 vs 4,170 in the first week.

There is an especially misleading, ill-informed and - if we might editorialize - plain stoopid editorial on HOT lanes and tolling in The Washington Times November 1. Addressed to Virginia voters it attacks the McDonnell administration for "sticking stubbornly by its unpopular decision to convert Interstate 95 into one big toll road."

It cites a Quinnipiac University survey that, it says, found 52 percent of Virginias who "don’t want tolls."

Houston Metro, the area transit authority that operates HOV lanes has formally authorized their conversion to HOT lanes in which single occupant vehicles (SOVs) will be admitted for a toll. A Metro board meeting Thursday set toll rates to be in a range between $1.00 and $10.00 per trip.

After a dismal first week with little traffic the Georgia I-85 toll express lanes (XL) did somewhat better in their second week. Toll-paying traffic averaged 6250/day in the second week, up 44% on the 4170 daily average of the first week. (Monday 10th holiday excluded) Data provided by Georgia Tolls (SRTA) show no improvement so far in traffic flows in the free lanes. Of course we're only talking two weeks of operation.

Virginia secretary of transportation Sean Connaughton says the state is abandoning most of the inside-the-Beltway portion of the I-95/I-395 HOT lanes project. What he calls a new I-95 HOT lanes project will go some 27 miles, 43km south to VA610 in Stafford County. A 2 mile, 3km stub will go just inside the Beltway to Edsall Rd. The rest of the I-395 project, some six miles, 10km to the Pentagon and the 14th Street Potomac River bridges is dead.

Toll express lanes on I-95 north of Miami are described as "very impressive" and as "accomplishing almost everything that was hoped for them" and as "very close to forecast" by Robert (Bob) Poole.

Utah DOT is happy with PBS&J's management of their I-15 HOT Lanes project through the Salt Lake City metro area. They've been awarded UDOT's "Consultant of the Year" award. A press statement quotes UDOT's Catherine Cutler as saying the PBS&J team on the job made an "invaluable contribution" to the success of the "Express Lanes" project.

The San Francisco Bay area have their first toll express lane (TEL) operational. It began collecting tolls from 5am this morning (Sep 20) local time. A spokesman Dave Hyams told us this afternoon "about a thousand" people made use of the toll lanes, and that the project sponsors are "very pleased with" the startup. There are one or two "anecdotal reports" of misbehavior by motorists, he said, but "nothing out of the ordinary" and no real incidents.

Transurban the concessionaire constructing toll lanes on I-495 the Capital Beltway is offering to extend them to the American Legion Bridge at the Potomac River (Maryland territory.) The extension with a single HOT lane each direction from Tysons Corner north would provide a better transition, engineers say, than the presently planned more abrupt merge of dual toll lanes with general purpose lanes.