Northern Virginia HOT Lanes

[cpzilliacus]

Said land would have already been amortized out by the time DTR was constructed, let alone when HOV lanes were added to the DTR.  Since the land had already long been purchased and done by the time the DTR HOV lanes came about, it's a hard sell to claim that Federal funding was used in their construction.

I respectfully disagree.

You don't generally amortize or depreciate the land, only the improvements you build on it. 

And the federal government's long-standing policy on assets where federal dollars fund even a relatively small part of the value of the asset means that federal rules and regulations apply to that asset with no time limitation.

[Mapmikey]

Regardless of one's opinion of whether the federal gov't contributed substantially to the cost of the toll road, they DO have (or least did in 1988) authority to overrule VDOT on decisions involving HOV.

See pdf pages 53-55 (pages 31-33 of the document) at http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/meetings/minutes_pdf/CTB-12-1988-01.pdf

VDOT tried to establish peak period HOV-3 on the median lane, which was agreed to by the MWAA (in fact the agreement for allowing the toll road on their ROW requires VDOT provide HOV relief when congestion warranted it).  This was then overturned by the Congressional Oversight Committee for the Operation of Airports.  The CTB then deferred implementation of the HOV until safety of the road and enforcement technology was improved, among other things.

Mapmikey

[1995hoo]

Spotted something interesting on I-95's HOV facility this afternoon. See below: Variable speed limit signs and what appear to be lane-control signals. There was another just past the exit for the Franconia—Springfield Parkway. I exited there and so I don't know if there are any of these further south. I have not previously heard anything about variable speed limits being implemented on there either during construction or as part of the final HO/T lane configuration, but I think it makes sense to set up something like this together with lane-control signals because of the lanes' configuration of cramming three lanes into the existing footprint. That "shoulder" on the right in this image is in essentially its final configuration. Once the work is done and the HO/T lanes open, there is likely to be a need to close off a lane when there's an incident due to the lack of a full-width shoulder.

Hopefully sometime soon I can get a better picture when the sun is in a different place in the sky. Now that I know these are there, maybe next time I drive out to Fairfax I will use the northbound HOV in mid-morning so the sun is behind me.






Edited to add: I sent a tweet to the project management and received this reply confirming there will be variable speed limits:

Speed limits on 95 Express Lanes will be adjusted to help traffic move safely in the event of an incident/bad weather

[Mapmikey]

They are placing these assemblies at very regular intervals south of where you took the photo...

Mapmikey

[1995hoo]

They are placing these assemblies at very regular intervals south of where you took the photo...

Mapmikey

Thanks for the info. I haven't gone anywhere south of there in about a month and hadn't seen any. There aren't any of them north of there–at least, not as of this past Friday there weren't.

[1995hoo]

....

Northbound, in the morning, I think the lanes will work okay up to but not including the end of the HOT lanes at Edsal Road.  You're going to have more lanes feeding a chokepoint.  The mainline lanes of I-395 will be very congested approaching this merge point.  HOT lane users will get to the front of the line, but will still ultimately have to merge.   We can only hope that enough of the tollpayers are going to Tysons and not up I-395, that is what will keep the merge from becomming awful.  Perhaps the lane operators could make the toll for the segment between the Beltway and Edsal Road very high, thereby encouraging Tysons commuters but discouraging DC commuters from using the lanes, or at the least, getting DC commuters out of the lanes a little earlier than at the very very end.  Also, the operators should play up the fact that anyone with HOV-2 has another option...rather than merge onto I-395, they could continue paying tolls and use the I-495 lanes, and then take I-66 inbound to Arlington and DC (would really only work well for the west side of DC and Arlington, would be too out of the way for Capitol Hill).

....

Mike made the comment above way back in the very first post in this thread. I thought I'd mention that we tried this last night. Yesterday morning I offered to drive my wife to work, but she declined. She works at the Watergate complex near the Kennedy Center and takes the Metrorail to Foggy Bottom and then walks. Well, she got to work and e-mailed me and said it was a mistake to decline my offer because she was freezing by the time she arrived. So I picked her up last night. I had observed that I-395 outbound was at a standstill the entire way from the Pentagon to the Beltway, and there is a direct ramp from the Kennedy Center to the Roosevelt Bridge, so I had the idea of taking I-66 as an HOV-2 vehicle, then taking the Beltway HO/T lanes. All I have to say is, wow. We pulled away from her office at 5:32 and were pulling into our driveway in Kingstowne at 5:58–23 miles in 26 minutes at the peak of rush hour. Beltway toll was $2.25 and probably should have been higher–there was a huge crash out in the local lanes between Gallows and 236, debris all over the two or three right lanes.

This option really hasn't been publicized at all and I can see why someone would think it sounds crazy–we live south of the Beltway off Van Dorn Street and instead we drove 11 miles WEST before turning south.

The opposite route is not quite as fast due to I-66. I drove her to work this morning and I logically decided to try the same route, Beltway HO/T to I-66. The Beltway part was great even with a $5.15 toll (and HO/T lane traffic was busier than I'd ever seen it). I-66, not so much–it slowed to a crawl at the West Falls Church Metro and stayed that way until after Sycamore Street. Then we hit the tail end of the Roosevelt Bridge backup, so I took Exit 73 and went over Key Bridge, which was slow but not awful (and I have to say all the ice in the Potomac was neat to see, been quite a few years since I've seen it like that). Still much faster than the direct route, and faster than the Metro for that matter: We pulled out of our driveway at 8:12 and pulled up to her office at 8:51. So it's definitely quicker. It just doesn't work quite as well as the evening rush hour. I assume the main problem is the Dulles traffic refusing to merge properly and instead racing all the way down the "Exit Only" lane at the US-29 exit in Falls Church, then cutting across the gore area so people slam on the brakes.

The express lane operators really should consider publicizing this option for HOV-2 traffic paying the toll on I-95 when that system opens. Depending on where in DC you're ultimately headed, and on your tolerance for tolls, it's astonishing how much faster this is than fighting the general-purpose lanes on I-395 or sitting through all the red lights on parallel routes.

[mtantillo]

I would love to see Arlington residents along the I-66 corridor throw a fit about publicizing this! But really, Transurban gets more toll revenue from those going up to I-66 from Springfield than they would going up to Duke St from Springfield, so it is to their benefit to publicize it.

I-66 may be better outbound in PM rush because of that spot improvement from Fairfax drive to Sycamore Street. Made far more of an improvement than I ever expected.

Glad my idea worked

[1995hoo]

What I will find interesting is trying your idea on the southbound trip to Charlottesville some Friday night once the I-95 HO/T opens. We dropped our football season tickets a few years ago but we usually go to one or two games a year. If we leave on a Friday night I usually just put up with the slog out I-66 to Route 29 after picking up my wife at her office. I-66 moves right along until just before the Beltway and then you crawl, but it's still faster on a Friday night than I-95 is. I'm now intrigued by the idea of taking I-66 to the Beltway, the Beltway HO/T to Springfield, then the long loop ramp into the I-95 HO/T all the way down to Aquia. That would leave 13 or 17 miles in the main lanes (we normally exit at Route 3 and head west to Route 20, but this past October I found another way that involves exiting at Massaponax and using the new Lake Anna Parkway....avoids all those damn lights on Route 3). Right now this is not an option because of the traffic–we'd hit I-95 right around the end of HOV hours, but that's right as everyone floods into the HOV, and it backs up at Dumfries anyway. I-66 is slow, but it's a shorter distance.

The toll might well be extremely steep for a trip like that, to the point where I'd consider checking my E-ZPass balance before going and perhaps making a one-time payment to top up my account. But, as you suggested in a prior post in this thread, if you're only making that sort of trip (a 27-mile southbound trip during rush hour) once or twice a year, it's a lot easier to suck up the high toll to save time than it would be if you did it every day (I'd definitely pick up slugs if I had to make that drive, even after the tolling starts).

[froggie]

I assume the main problem is the Dulles traffic refusing to merge properly

Moreso the sheer volume of traffic in what is effectively a 4-to-2 merge.  Even if they "merge properly", you'll still have issues.

[mrsman]

I didn't notice anything in particular. The radio (which is what the Chipmunks-type noise was) said something about an incident out there, but I didn't see anything. On a rainy day you never know.

I was in DC earlier today and on my way home I noted that there are signs in place (partially covered) for the new 95 Express Lanes in the area just north of the Duke Street interchange. Interestingly, one of the new signs is a Clearview copy of the old sign for the Turkeycock ramp, complete with the I-95/I-495 shields, with the only differences (other than Clearview) being (a) the "EXPRESS LANES ONLY" auxiliary plaque is no longer being used and (b) there is now a poorly-covered black-on-yellow "LAST EXIT BEFORE TOLL" banner at the bottom. I found point (b) interesting because technically it's not entirely accurate given the "HOV-or-toll" nature of what they're building there. I'm not sure there's a clearer way to phrase it, though.

This interface between the HOV lanes (only) [between Turkeycock Run in the south and the Pentagon/S. Eads Street interchange in the north] and the HOV/Toll lanes [between Garrisonville, Stafford County in the south and Turkeycock Run in the north is going to be a clunky affair, at least for starters]. 

It is (in my personal opinion) unfortunate that VDOT and the Governor and General Assembly did not push back much harder against the objections raised against the project, which were, in my opinion, frivolous. Naming individual VDOT and USDOT employees as defendants in that lawsuit was entirely unjustified.  The last time there was a highway dispute between the Commonwealth and Arlington County (over I-66 between the Capital Beltway and Rosslyn), the Commonwealth got most of what it wanted, though I-66 was scaled-back from the 8-lane freeway that the Virginia Department of Highways (VDH, predecessor agency to VDOT) had long planned for. An acceptable compromise might have been that the private concession owner would not be permitted to widen the reversible roadway from 2 lanes to 3 lanes between Turkeycock Run and the Pentagon.

To what extent would the project need the local government approval if they merely changed the occupancy requirements of the lanes between the Pentagon and Turkeycock, if they do no physical construction?

As I understand it, Arlington was able to sue because the road widening would ruin air quality.  But could the legislature (or VDOT) simply remove the HOV restriction on this section of the roadway to allow the riders who are currently on the express lanes to continue to their destination without needing to merge?

[IIRC the section between Pentagon and DC along the bridge was once bus only, but is now open to all traffic at all times, so this has been done before.]

[froggie]

They could adjust the HOV restriction (hours/occupancy), but they cannot eliminate it entirely.  But eliminating it entirely would create an even worse bottleneck at the end than tolling it.

[Mapmikey]

It appears that when HOV-4 was dropped to HOV-3 the only concern VDOT had over its ability to do this was a federal law that would withhold money from Virginia if they modified anything related to the HOV dynamic on the Shirley Hwy.  That law was repealed in Sept 1988 and in Oct 1988 VDOT changed HOV-4 to HOV-3.  There is no mention in the Oct 1988 CTB Minutes (see pages 53-54 of the pdf at http://www.virginiadot.org/meetings/minutes_pdf/CTB-10-1988-01.pdf) of consulting with any local authority.

Which doesn't prevent someone from suing over it, but VDOT does have the authority to modify HOV rules...

Mapmikey

[cpzilliacus]

To what extent would the project need the local government approval if they merely changed the occupancy requirements of the lanes between the Pentagon and Turkeycock, if they do no physical construction?

It could have an impact on air quality, and Arlington County is represented on the groups that do regional-scale air quality and long-range transportation planning, as it should be.

As I understand it, Arlington was able to sue because the road widening would ruin air quality.  But could the legislature (or VDOT) simply remove the HOV restriction on this section of the roadway to allow the riders who are currently on the express lanes to continue to their destination without needing to merge?

Arlington sued, and asserted (among other things) that there would be air quality problems from an extension, but I do not think that was ever adjudicated before a judge.  They also asserted environmental justice issues, which were also never adjudicated.

[IIRC the section between Pentagon and DC along the bridge was once bus only, but is now open to all traffic at all times, so this has been done before.]

The "original" HOV/restricted lane roadway between the Va. 644 at Springfield and the D.C. side of the 14th Street Bridge was once buses-only.  It was then opened to van-poolers, then to HOV-4 car-pools and finally to HOV-3 car-poolers. After 1989, the HOV restrictions between the Pentagon and the D.C. end of the restricted lanes were removed, and have never been imposed since then.

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Express Lanes driving, tolls, continued to rise in late 2013

Average workday use of the Capital Beltway's 495 Express Lanes rose slightly in the last three months of 2013, according to the operating company's latest quarterly report.

The biggest day was Dec. 19, the Thursday before Christmas, when 46,975 trips were taken along the 14 miles of high-occupancy toll lanes between Springfield and the area just north of Tysons Corner. This may have been a combination of holiday shopping, some long-distance travel and regular commuting. The toll revenue for the day also was a record, at $123,604.

For the final quarter, average workday trips totaled 37,969, compared with 37,574 in the July-September quarter. Transurban's financial report noted that commuter traffic was down because of the 16-day federal government shutdown in October.

Still, the daily revenue grew from a daily average of $51,736 in the July-September quarter to an average of $64,277 for the October-December period.

[froggie]

And a follow-up from WTOP which notes the first year numbers are notably lower than the initial projections of 66,000 vpd.

[cpzilliacus]

And a follow-up from WTOP which notes the first year numbers are notably lower than the initial projections of 66,000 vpd.

And yet another follow-up from Bacon's Rebellion.  Jim Bacon speaks to your comment above (emphasis added):

Here's Transurban's problem: When it was lining up financing in 2007 for the $2 billion project, which added four new lanes to a 14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway, the economy was booming. A 2007 traffic and revenue study by Vollmer/Stantec forecast average weekday trips over the first full year of operations at 66,000 and revenue of $46.1 million, according to Toll Road News. After four years of operation, the study forecast, the express lanes would log 117,000 average weekday trips and annual revenue of $79 million. No one anticipated the severe recession or the national erosion in Vehicle Miles Traveled that eased congestion on the nation's highways. The whole point of paying a toll to use the express lanes is to avoid the unpredictability and time delays caused by congestion. No congestion = no revenue.

The company pulled out of its investment in the Pocahontas Parkway outside Richmond last year but remains committed to completing the Interstate 95 express lanes project in Northern Virginia.

[cpzilliacus]

The Washington Post's Dr. Gridlock: I-95 express lanes operator plans long campaign to attract customers

The 95 Express Lanes in Northern Virginia aren't scheduled to open till the start of 2015, but the company that will operate them is planning to launch an education and marketing campaign early this year.

The high-occupancy toll lanes already open on the Capital Beltway showed some of the complexities inherent in this style of driving. Commuters who had little experience with any form of toll road had to learn what it was like to use a toll road with no tollbooths, on which the toll could vary by a few dollars, depending on when they chose to use it.

Though the Beltway express lanes have been open more than a year, drivers still ask me very basic questions about the decisions they need to make and the tolls they have to pay.

The version of the express lanes coming to Interstate 95 follows the same basic concept, but a driver who has been using the Beltway lanes will notice some important differences.

[cpzilliacus]

Putting a Price on D.C.'s Worst Commute:  See the Atlantic Cities article that I posted to the Virginia forum. 

Lot of discussion about the I-95 HOV/Toll lanes.

[1995hoo]

BTW, we were on outbound I-395 this past Saturday morning and I had an interesting thought (sorry, no video screenshot of the sign, we were in my wife's car). On southbound I-395 as you approach the Turkeycock ramps, which is where the HO/T system will have its northern terminus, there are a bunch of new BGSs in place as I noted earlier in this thread.

The BGS for the Turkeycock ramp lists, in this order:

[Secondary 648 shield] Edsall Road
[I-95 shield] [I-495 shield]
[Secondary 644 shield] Franconia

No cardinal direction posted for the Beltway (you may recall the old sign had "I-95 NORTH I-495").

The part that struck me as peculiar is the use of "Franconia." I assume someone just copied that from the old sign. Here's why it's odd. Under the current design, that sign makes sense as worded: If you qualify to be in the HOV lanes, you can stay in the HOV lanes and exit directly onto westbound Route 644 towards Springfield and Burke. If you want to go eastbound, you must use the Turkeycock flyover and then wend your way through the ramps in Springfield. Under the new system, however, you will either have to satisfy HOV or pay a toll if you want to use the direct ramp from the reversible lanes to westbound 644. If you are unable or unwilling to comply, you will have to exit at Turkeycock. (This issue exists because during non-HOV hours, all traffic will be permitted in the reversible lanes north of Turkeycock, just as is the case today, but south of there will be 24/7 HO/T operations.)

Maybe it's a trivial point and I'm overanalyzing the sign.

[1995hoo]

WOW! Dr. Gridlock has a new blog entry saying the peak toll on the I-495 HO/T lanes hit $11.55 on April 3.

At 9:00 this morning, the Inner Loop toll to go the full length of the lanes was $11.00.

[cpzilliacus]

WOW! Dr. Gridlock has a new blog entry saying the peak toll on the I-495 HO/T lanes hit $11.55 on April 3.

At 9:00 this morning, the Inner Loop toll to go the full length of the lanes was $11.00.

You beat me to the punch.  Good news for Transurban.

[cpzilliacus]

Virginia getting rid of E-ZPass monthly fees

[74/171FAN]

CPZ,
In the future, please only post once in the thread that is most relevant to the topic at hand (including news articles).  I know that the EZPass information does apply here (and in the Hampton Roads tolls thread), but referring to a post in another thread (in this case the Virginia thread-where this information is most relevant IMO) makes it seem that you are duplicating posts, which is against forum guidelines. (Unless the topic itself is a duplicate topic that should not exist in the first place.)

Thanks,
Mark
 

[cpzilliacus]

Sounds to me like a driver was in the wrong lane, and had a freak-out with fatal consequences. 

Should there be signs that read DO NOT STOP and DO NOT BACK UP? 

Even though that should be implicit on a freeway-class road?


Woman dies in crash at Beltway express lanes entrance

[1995hoo]

My thoughts are already in the comments below that blog entry. I'm surprised none of the hand-wringers attacked me for them, especially for my "Darwin in Action" comment.