As the 495 Express Lanes prepare to open on Saturday, public ignorance continues.
Dr. Gridlock's column from Sunday's paper contains the following letter from a local resident:
Dear Dr. Gridlock:
I keep seeing signs for E-ZPass along both sides of Interstate 66 between Arlington County and the Nutley Street exit. What does this mean, and how it does it affect me?
I am not a commuter. I use I-66 only occasionally to go into Arlington from Fairfax County and return. Can I still use I-66, or will I have to purchase an E-ZPass?
– Carolyn Nugent, Fairfax
When I read that I shook my head. OK, I guess it's fair to acknowledge that the advance signs on I-66 do not include an I-495 shield. Oscar posted this picture last May in the "Virginia" thread:
It's interesting to note that the identical sign on the Dulles Access Road has an I-495 shield at the top above the "E-ZPASS EXPRESS" banner (and it's a bit of an odd-looking shield in terms of not having any kind of background–it's a cut-out centered above the "E-ZPASS EXPRESS" plaque). I wonder why they didn't do something similar with the signs on I-66. The added cost would have been negligible.
Either way, I can't begin to fathom that someone from Fairfax is unaware of the high occupancy/toll project on the Beltway, yet her letter implies that she claims ignorance. That project has been perhaps THE central fact of transportation in Northern Virginia for the past four years as the Beltway has been rebuilt, and it's regularly mentioned on the news and on the traffic reports. You'd really have to be making a serious effort to avoid knowing about it.
But seeing her letter makes me think that the fact that she wrote into Dr. Gridlock indicates that she must have at least some minimal knowledge of traffic and transit issues–after all, presumably she reads his column and so knew where to write, correct? That makes me wonder how many people there are out there who are even MORE ignorant.
Eastbound I-66 is going to be pretty darn interesting during the morning rush hour for awhile as people get used to the new setup. You'll have HOV-2 drivers who used to use the left exit who now must exit to the right if they don't want to pay the toll. While that's the same as it's been for the past month or two of construction, you now have a new twist: Single-occupant vehicles who now want to move LEFT to use the left-side exit into the Express Lanes because they're willing to pay the toll. Having criss-crossing traffic like that doesn't strike me as a wonderful situation in an area that's already congested (and eastbound I-66 at the Beltway has been heavily congested every morning for at least the past 20 years).
Meanwhile, you still have people asking questions like whether the HOV-or-toll restriction will be in effect 24/7 (it will)–they seem to think that at non-rush hour it will be free for all.
Then you have clods who are just stupid or who place blind faith in their sat-navs. One of the comments to Dr. Gridlock's column on Sunday read as follows:
BAD SIGNS. My sister from Philadelphia wanted to exit on 66W from the beltway today, and the signs kept telling her to exit left, which of course she couldn't do, so she missed the exit completely. There is NOTHING on those signs that indicate that the left 66 exits are for HOT lanes only. This needs to be fixed ASAP.
That's all bullshit, of course. There are NO signs over the general-purpose lanes referring to a left exit to I-66. The signs over the Express Lanes have a huge white "E-ZPASS EXPRESS EXITS" plaque, not to mention they're physically located over the Express Lanes, not over the general-purpose ones. I strongly suspect this guy (and not his sister) was following a sat-nav telling him to use the old left-side exit from the Beltway that closed in 2011 and has been demolished. I still regularly see people slowing down in the left lane, presumably looking for that exit. This is why sat-navs have those annoying nag screens with the legal disclaimers.....
So I kind of shake my head at the ignorance out there and I wonder how it's all going to work next week when this is open on commute days for the first time, though perhaps the following week might pose more of a valid test because next week many people may be out of town for Thanksgiving. I think I may test it out on Monday when I need to make a trip to Potomac, though I'll likely wait until after rush hour just to get a lower toll.