Northern Virginia HOT Lanes

[cpzilliacus]

That was a 100+ car wreck spread out over a mile in Stafford County.  The wreck field was so large that there were pockets of cars within that managed to come to a stop without hitting anything.  That caused my commute to be 6.5 hrs.

That's the one.  If I remember, there was just a "little bit" of frozen stuff that fell on the untreated pavement, which may not have been anticipated by VDOT.

Springfield to Fredericksburg in 2.5 hrs or worse happens several times a year regardless of which way the HOV is pointing...

Worst I have personally seen is between 2 and 2.5 hours from Triangle (Va. 619) to Southwest D.C. in the morning.

Something weird is happening today.  Already at 2:45 the express lanes are backed up to SR 619 and the mainline is also backed up that far from US 17 Falmouth (17 miles).  Probably a wreck at the Rappahannock River - it is wide open south of the river.  I expect it will take 3+ hours to get home this evening.

Don't see how 45 mph will be able to maintained at the very south end because 1) There is a 30 mph S curve at the end and 2) Once tolls begin there will be more cars than now.  Only once in the now 6 days I've seen was it free flowing at the south end.

Mapmikey
16+ years of commuting in this...

You drive there much more than I do. 

My guess is that things will "even out" pretty quickly during "traditional" southbound commute times, and SOV drivers will get used to the tolls, regardless of where they end up (though I do not know what Transurban does if all of the capacity is used-up by HOV-3 traffic).

I said 45 in those conditions because many (probably most) of the drivers in the PM rush will likely be regular drivers like you - people that are used to conditions, which will not change that much once everyone is used to the change.

[1995hoo]

....

–Second picture is on the existing ramp from the southbound Parkway to southbound I-95. To the right is the new ramp connecting the HO/T lanes and Alban Road/Boudinot Drive. You may recall there used to be access to southbound I-95's general-purpose lanes at that intersection. What I found interesting was to see a toll gantry placed over an exit/entrance ramp. I believe this is the only place on either set of Northern Virginia HO/T lanes that I've seen a toll gantry over a ramp. There's a gantry out in the lanes themselves next to this ramp. I'm a bit curious as to why they configured it this way instead of just having two gantries out in the lanes themselves, but I suspect it might have something to do with there being a northbound slip ramp located just to the south of the ramp–might that have been too many gantries in too short an area or something?



....

Coming north from the Auto Train station this morning after getting back from Florida I think I realized why the gantry noted above is over the ramp. We used the express lanes from the Newington northbound slip ramp to the Franconia—Springfield Parkway. The distance between that slip ramp and the Boudinot Drive exit is minuscule. By putting the gantry over the ramp, they eliminate the possibility of someone entering the express lanes via that slip ramp, immediately exiting at Boudinot, and not paying a toll to do so.

[NJRoadfan]

I drove the lanes southbound yesterday. I can see why backups were occurring at the southern end. The curves on the flyover back to I-95 seemed to catch a few folks by surprise (myself included) causing some slowdowns. I wouldn't be surprised if a car lands up in the parking lot of that condo complex next to the ramp in the future when they overshoot the ramp. Overall it was a pleasant ride down, i did hit a random backup at the Rappahannock Falls bridge and thru Fredericksburg and later in Ashland.

[Mapmikey]

Northbound there are only 2 segments, with the SR 644 flyover as the transition.

At 5:05 this morning, the toll was $5.15 for the southern segment and $1.15 for the northern one.  This is $0.22 per mile.

From the mainline's perspective (and maybe from the express lanes too...too much info to process at that hour), the toll was the same to VA 286 and SR 644; also the toll was the same to the beltway and the northern end.

Mapmikey

[1995hoo]

I'm off this week, so I drove my wife to work this morning given the lack of traffic. Took Van Dorn to the Beltway and up the I-395 general-purpose lanes. Didn't see any reason to cut across six lanes of the Beltway just to use that short segment of the express lanes.

The Beltway sign for the inbound express lanes refers to Turkeycock as "395-236." Toll this morning from the Beltway to Turkeycock was $1.00. It looked funny to see just the one line of text ("395-236 $1.00") on the VMS panel, but of course there's only the one exit north of the Beltway.

I did not manage to get a look over at the express lanes to see whether and to what extent the cops may have been doing HOV enforcement at Turkeycock because I was focused on the traffic around me. (No dashcam, we took my wife's car so I could fill the gas tank.) I did note the last VMS over the express lanes said non-HOVs had to exit ahead. I had previously suggested a fixed sign to that effect, but after seeing it, I think the VMS makes more sense for that purpose. Among other reasons, it's more attention-grabbing.

I assume from the sign on the Beltway that the express lane signs will refer to flyovers or slip ramps back to the mainline as "95-[route number]," such as "95-644" for the northbound flyover in Newington. It occurred to me that this is the sort of information they could post on their website in conjunction with the maps. My wife thought the "395-236" wording was confusing.

Depending on how the day evolves I might go out this afternoon to look at the toll-rate signs.

I realized as we were driving up Van Dorn Street that the new system opens up a new option to people in my part of the county. Some mornings it can take over half an hour to go the two miles from our neighborhood to Eisenhower Avenue. The toll lanes give a new option that didn't exist before because we can now go the other way, enter the northbound reversible lanes from the Franconia—Springfield Parkway, cross the Beltway, and then exit to the I-395 mainline. Previously we had to work our way through Springfield to the general-purpose lanes.


Edited to add: Incidentally, on my way home it looked like it was mostly HOV traffic with the Flex transponders. The white lights on the Turkeycock gantry were blinking constantly as I went past there.

[Mapmikey]

Other designations they are using NB:

95 - 123
FC PKWY
95 - 644
FRAN-SPR
I-495

No idea if this was true before with the 495 express lanes but at https://www.expresslanes.com/on-the-road you can click on the pink buttons and it shows you verbatim what the VMS toll signs say right then.

Mapmikey

[1995hoo]

....

No idea if this was true before with the 495 express lanes but at https://www.expresslanes.com/on-the-road you can click on the pink buttons and it shows you verbatim what the VMS toll signs say right then.

I believe that's been available for the Beltway lanes for a while. My thought is a little different, though–it seems to me it'd be useful for people if they could use the interactive map to learn what, if anything, the sign might say to refer to a given exit. That is, you can go online and see that if you enter from northbound Route 1 in Woodbridge the sign will list FC PKWY for $x.yz and 95-644 for $a.bc, but if you don't know what "95-644" means, it won't help you a whole lot.

I suppose for the primary target market–regular commuters–it won't matter much because most of them will figure it out after a few trips.

[1995hoo]

For those interested in the discussion about the lanes' southern end, here's video from our southbound trip last weekend. I haven't been through there in the other direction since the lanes opened because the Auto Train drops you off much further to the north.

Sound muted due to conversation.

[froggie]

Going back to earlier discussion, the townhouses visible at about 1:38 of hoo's video are why a separate Garrisonville ramp from 95 before the flyover isn't a realistic option.

[cpzilliacus]

I-495 Express Lanes from the entrance at the north end to Springfield only $3.65 toll even though 2 of the "free" lanes are blocked for a fatal crash investigation by VSP on the Outer Loop between Va. 7 and I-66.

[jeffandnicole]

I'm sure it was discussed previously, but why did they do a flyover for the merge back into the regular lanes, rather than just merge the HOT lanes onto the left side of the free lanes.  Even makes more sense especially as the HOT speed limit is 65 mph, allowing the faster traffic to flow onto the left, faster side of the highway.

Sure, keep the flyover for those needing to access the first exit there (kinda like the flyover from I-495 in Wilmington DE to access the DE 141 Exits), but for traffic continuing south, a simple merge on the left would appear to offer a more seamless merge at the end of the HOT lanes.

[Mapmikey]

Tolls from the beltway south to the lanes end were about $18 a little while ago but have dropped to $16ish in the last few minutes...

Another long back up starting at US 17 back to Triangle has emerged...

Mapmikey

[oscar]

I'm sure it was discussed previously, but why did they do a flyover for the merge back into the regular lanes, rather than just merge the HOT lanes onto the left side of the free lanes.  Even makes more sense especially as the HOT speed limit is 65 mph, allowing the faster traffic to flow onto the left, faster side of the highway.

Sure, keep the flyover for those needing to access the first exit there (kinda like the flyover from I-495 in Wilmington DE to access the DE 141 Exits), but for traffic continuing south, a simple merge on the left would appear to offer a more seamless merge at the end of the HOT lanes.

I saw some roadwork in the I-95 median just south of the flyover ramp.  That might be to extend the HO/T lanes a little south to let through traffic merge into southbound I-95 from the left, as you suggest.

[1995hoo]

I'm sure it was discussed previously, but why did they do a flyover for the merge back into the regular lanes, rather than just merge the HOT lanes onto the left side of the free lanes.  Even makes more sense especially as the HOT speed limit is 65 mph, allowing the faster traffic to flow onto the left, faster side of the highway.

Sure, keep the flyover for those needing to access the first exit there (kinda like the flyover from I-495 in Wilmington DE to access the DE 141 Exits), but for traffic continuing south, a simple merge on the left would appear to offer a more seamless merge at the end of the HOT lanes.

I don't know, though I note the speed limit in the general-purpose lanes is 65 there as well (going southbound, it goes from 55 to 60 south of Route 123 and then from 60 to 65 just north of the weigh station). The flyover there is important because of that interchange, as you note. There's a fairly popular slug lot located there. (For those unfamiliar, slugging is our term for what Californians call "casual carpooling"–people line up to get rides from drivers who want to use the HOV but don't have enough passengers.)

I suspect, though it's just a guess, that the overall bad experience with the HOV lanes' old southern terminus (a left-side merge just south of Route 234) may have factored into the decision to use a flyover.

I've seen a number of comments saying the northbound entrance at the southern terminus should have been constructed as a flyover to reduce the need for people entering the highway there to cut across all the thru lanes to get to the express lane entrance.

[cpzilliacus]

The real solution here is to extend the Transurban I-95 HOV/toll lanes as far south as money allows. 

[ixnay]

Not going back through 25 pages of this thread, so I'll ask here... wtf is a Turkeycock gantry???     Wiki and Google aren't helping.

ixnay

[NJRoadfan]

Tolls from the beltway south to the lanes end were about $18 a little while ago but have dropped to $16ish in the last few minutes...

Another long back up starting at US 17 back to Triangle has emerged...

Mapmikey

So, nothing has really changed. I haven gotten stuck in the same backup before the extension was built. I've always called it the Fredericksburg crawl.

[1995hoo]

Not going back through 25 pages of this thread, so I'll ask here... wtf is a Turkeycock gantry???     Wiki and Google aren't helping.

ixnay

"Turkeycock" is the name (not generally known by most of the public) for a set of flyovers and slip ramps connecting the I-395 reversible and general-purpose lanes between Edsall Road (secondary route 648) and Duke Street (primary route 236). The name "Turkeycock" does not refer to a bird's male member but rather to Turkeycock Run, which passes under the highway there. A "run" in this context is essentially a stream that's larger than a small creek. (Cue puns about a "cock" and a "stream"....)

So "Turkeycock gantry" in this particular context refers to a toll gantry located just to the south of the Turkeycock ramps. Those ramps are also the point where, going north, the HO/T system ends and the reversible lanes transition to being peak-hour HOV lanes.


Edited to add: Google Maps link here, although it doesn't show the new northbound flyover taking traffic out of the reversible roadway into the general-purpose lanes. You can see Turkeycock Run Stream Valley Park marked on the map along with the stream itself.

[Mapmikey]

So by the time I got to the Springfield Interchange (using 495 express lanes all the way), the toll to the south end of 95's express lanes was down to $11.

I was able to drive 60-70 mph no problem all the way to the flyover at the very end. 

I passed a VMS on the mainline that said "VA 234 - 16 miles, 48 minutes" - I got there via express lane in 14.  By the time I had travelled 48 minutes, I had pulled up in front of my house, 22 miles south of VA 234.  The backup from US 17 had also eased to about 4 miles worth of 25 mph travel.

There was a wreck on the mainline just before the end flyover in Garrisonville.  So I estimate overall I saved an hour by using all the toll roads possible.

The most expensive thing I noticed is that the toll to use the new ramp from I-95 SB at Exit 161 to then get right back off at the VA 123 exit, was over $3.  It probably would save somebody 10 minutes over working through the lane squeeze at Woodbridge for someone who was going to exit at 123.

Mapmikey

[mtantillo]

Sounds like a decent first day. And based on the Wapo comments, you would have thought the world was going to end today!

[cpzilliacus]

Dr. Gridlock in Washington Post: First experiences with I-95 HOT lanes

This was not a normal morning on Interstate 95, and not just because it was the first day for tolling in the 95 Express Lanes. Traffic generally seemed light for this heavily traveled corridor in Northern Virginia.

As the afternoon rush began with the reversible lanes opening southbound, Virginia State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said via e-mail that there was "nothing to report in the way of any significant problems or issues with this morning's rush hour ... All went well, and state police are hoping for much the same as the afternoon to evening rush hour soon commences."

E-ZPass. Based strictly on observations of passing drivers, I would say that many were traveling solo on Monday morning, with E-ZPasses mounted on their windshields. Maybe the carpoolers are still on holiday. Most vehicles had Virginia plates. But on the second run, the one that started at 8:21 a.m., I noticed many out-of-state vehicles. New York and New Jersey plates made up the largest contingents. It's tough to spot an E-ZPass transponder when a vehicle passes at 80 mph, so it's hard to be sure, but more often than not, I could not see a transponder.

Drivers who use the lanes without a transponder are going to get a bill in the mail, wherever the registered owner lives.

[cpzilliacus]

"Turkeycock" is the name (not generally known by most of the public) for a set of flyovers and slip ramps connecting the I-395 reversible and general-purpose lanes between Edsall Road (secondary route 648) and Duke Street (primary route 236). The name "Turkeycock" does not refer to a bird's male member but rather to Turkeycock Run, which passes under the highway there. A "run" in this context is essentially a stream that's larger than a small creek. (Cue puns about a "cock" and a "stream"....)

I have tried several times (and failed) to get VDOT to sign Turkeycock Run in the express lanes, as well as the northbound and southbound conventional lanes.  Has not happened.

[jeffandnicole]

Dr. Gridlock in Washington Post

E-ZPass. Based strictly on observations of passing drivers, I would say that many were traveling solo on Monday morning, with E-ZPasses mounted on their windshields. Maybe the carpoolers are still on holiday. Most vehicles had Virginia plates. But on the second run, the one that started at 8:21 a.m., I noticed many out-of-state vehicles. New York and New Jersey plates made up the largest contingents. It's tough to spot an E-ZPass transponder when a vehicle passes at 80 mph, so it's hard to be sure, but more often than not, I could not see a transponder.

Being that many NY & NJ drivers have EZ Passes due to most roads, driveways, and supermarket checkout lanes having toll plazas in those two states, I'm wondering if Dr. Gridlock wasn't looking too good in those vehicles.  Those state's drivers are pretty good regarding the EZ Pass usage.  It's drivers in states without EZ Pass that tend to get fouled up.

As for carpooling - the week between Christmas & New Years is tough.  In my carpool of 4, I'm the only one working this week.  Even if 2 of us were working, we'd still be excluded from a HOV/HOT-3 roadway (well, we wouldn't get free passage at least). Next week would be a better test as to how the carpooling option is working.

[1995hoo]

Sounds like a decent first day. And based on the Wapo comments, you would have thought the world was going to end today!

So many of those people pre-judged the entire thing such that in their minds, any little hiccup, however minimal, "proves" them "correct" in their opposition to the project.

I still have deep reservations about the I-95 project and its impact on the general-purpose lanes (I suspect traffic out there will get worse than it used to be once the Christmas/New Year's lull is over), but I see little point in acting like the people who rail against it, say the tolls need to be abolished, etc. The time for those arguments was years ago when the project was first proposed.

BTW, I drove my wife to work again today, same route as yesterday (i.e., local lanes only), and I observed a fair number of SOVs in the HO/T segment continuing on into the HOV segment. They weren't driving clean-fuel vehicles, either. I suspect there will be a lot of that and that the State Police will be quite busy nailing HOV violators. Didn't see any enforcement out there today, though, and on the way home the cops were all in the northbound local lanes dealing with what looked like a truck accident of some sort.



Edited in early afternoon to add–

The following rant just appeared in the comments to Dr. Gridlock's latest blog entry. This one amuses me greatly because (a) it's so whiny and (b) more importantly, the guy drives an expensive BMW two-seater yet complains about his inability to use HOV-3 lanes. Seems to me if you move to a location where an HOV facility is an important transportation feature, yet you buy a vehicle that renders you ineligible to use said HOV facility, you have no basis for complaint. You should have bought a different car if you'd wanted to use those lanes!

I live in Stafford, VA the fees they are charging are too high for someone who does a daily commute and before you say I should HOV-3 forget about it. It is quite difficult for find three people who can ride with me to work on my schedule AND anywhere near me. And more importantly I drive a Z4, only two seats. I used to use the HOV lanes when they allowed me to get on them early, not now. This morning I watched a hand full of folks using the HOV, probably unaware that they were going to get zonked with a nice fee via mail. These lanes are going to largely be unused, thanks to big fees and ridiculous HOV-3 requirements. Congestion would have been better served with a use for all expansion of I-95 nearly doubling the capacity one way at a time with a true benefit for all as opposed to a tiny portion of the population who might be willing to pay these fees.

[froggie]

Replied to one of your comments.  Specifically, that "big sea of parking" at the Pentagon is off-limits to most.