Atlanta's coming HOT lanes

[lkjljlkj]

I am curious about a couple things:
1) Atlanta will have only a single lane... is this common for their implementations?  I've run across them only in Miami, & they had two.  I know DC's getting two as well...

2) do most places with them have multiple HOT-lane only exits?  On I-85, you have a lot of lanes to cross to make it to an exit, and the only HOT lane exit will be to GA-316... I can't help but wonder if the difficulty in getting over in heavy traffic might wipe out any time savings in the lane over what is a fairly short distance.  

It seems the drivers who could gain the most benefit from them are drivers from exurbs like Dacula or Buford, where median income, while a bit above average, is not especially high.  It'll be interesting to see how many are willing to pay.

[RoadWarrior56]

I live 4 miles from those lanes.  I am interested on how they will operate in the real world.  There is no physical separation between the free lanes and the toll lane, just double solid white lines.  The enforcement mechanism based on technology had better be fullproof as they are promising, or the lane will be repeatedly violated by single drivers, just as it is now.

They are talking a minimum toll of 10 cents per mile in non-congested times, that will cause the lane to sit nearly empty during those periods (except for the occasional express bus and the HOV-3 drivers), unless the violators take up the slack.  I will get a "Peach Pass" transponder and try it out, and there may be a few times when the 90 cents per mile (or higher) congestion price may be worth it if it is actually successful in keeping the lane free-flowing, but I don't figure to be a regular user.

[mtantillo]

Well the whole point of HOT lanes are to operate them like a business with an economic model.  As such, there shouldn't be any minimum toll set.  The theory being if the lanes sit empty at 10 cents a mile, then the price is too high. The operators have an incentive to lower the price to get some people to use the empty capacity.  This is exactly why airlines slash fares at the last minute if there are empty seats...better to sell them at a fraction of the price than to let them sit empty.  Similarly in HOT lanes, better to have 1 car paying 5 cents than zero cars paying 10 cents. 

I read all the fine print of the PeachPass agreement to ensure there wasn't any hidden rule saying that accounts will be deactivated if not used for 6 months, etc.  There wasn't, so I tried to sign up, so I could try out the lanes on my very infrequent visits to the ATL area.  Slight problem though. The registration form REQUIRES that you have a county to go along with your primary address.  You enter the state, and a list of counties appears.  You select from a dropdown menu.  When I enter DC as my state, no counties appear on the dropdown menu to select from.  Click submit, error pops up, must select a county to continue.  Select WHAT county???  Must have been a provincial web developer who has never heard of an independent city!!  Things aren't always the same as in Georgia!  So I called customer service, and the rep couldn't even register me over the phone! She asked if I have another address in a county that I could use instead? Luckily. The primary address is not the same as credit card address, so its billed to my card in DC, but the tags will be sent to my office in Fairfax County VA.    Needless to say, Im not impressed with Peach Pass thus far!!

[Bryant5493]

It's not going to work, because the lanes aren't going to separated: it's going to be really unsafe and people will use them for "free," regardless of their being a fine attached for improper usage. The congestion issue in Metro Atlanta isn't going to be rectified, in short.


Be well,

Bryant

[Bryant5493]

2) do most places with them have multiple HOT-lane only exits?  On I-85, you have a lot of lanes to cross to make it to an exit, and the only HOT lane exit will be to GA-316... I can't help but wonder if the difficulty in getting over in heavy traffic might wipe out any time savings in the lane over what is a fairly short distance. 

It seems the drivers who could gain the most benefit from them are drivers from exurbs like Dacula or Buford, where median income, while a bit above average, is not especially high.  It'll be interesting to see how many are willing to pay.

Yeah, more left interchanges need to be built for the HOT lanes to function in a better way; merging from four lanes left to right is darn near impossible in heavy traffic.


Be well,

Bryant

[mtantillo]

It's not going to work, because the lanes aren't going to separated: it's going to be really unsafe and people will use them for "free," regardless of their being a fine attached for improper usage. The congestion issue in Metro Atlanta isn't going to be rectified, in short.

I wouldn't be so sure about so many people using the lanes for free.  GDOT has a lot of enforcement tools at their disposal, and if they use them properly, they can get a pretty good level of enforcement. 

A barrier separated lane would be very expensive to construct.  If they separated it with plastic flex tubes like they do in Florida, that would mean skyrocketing maintenance costs (those costs for replacing one or two tubes at a time add up quickly.  And plastic flex tubes are no safer than a double white line with no barrier...people can still cross the flex tubes, because BY DESIGN the flex tubes will break away and allow the vehicle to enter the adjacent lane.  In otherwords, it won't do anything to stop an out of control vehicle from careening across that line.  While it may serve to discourage some people from purposely crossing the line, anyone who is intent on getting into or out of that lane can still do so...they just need to look for a good gap where the tubes were knocked down. 

So apparently GDOT has chosen to go with electronic enforcement of the double white line instead of high maintenance costs for something that is only a psychological barrier and not really a hard physical barrier. 

So imagine this scenario.  Put up a toll tag reader and a camera every quarter mile.  All you need is a few induction loops in the pavement to sense the presence of a vehicle, and a good sign gantry to mount a reader, camera, and infrared "flash".  I'm sure they will have very frequent signs warning you not to cross the double white line, in addition to all the guide signs, so plenty of places to mount this equipment.  Then the lane works like this.  You enter.  You pass under the first reader.  Your Peach Pass is scanned, and that "locks in" the per mile rate and charges you the toll for your first segment.  That qualifies as a legal entry.  Then, lets say, 10 times between there and the next entrance, your Peach Pass is read for no other reason then to verify legal entry into the lane.  Then you pass another entry point.  Next Peach Pass read charges you the toll for the next segment at the promised rate you locked in when you entered the lane for the first time.  Again, you pass a whole bunch of readers after that which do nothing more than confirm your legal entry into the lane. 

If a Peach Pass read fails, the camera snaps a photo of the license plate.  Using optical character recognition, they can automatically link the license plate up to a Peach Pass account.  That would then count as a valid tag read.  Lets face it, technology isn't perfect, but they do have a fairly reliable backup.  But they don't really want to rely on the backup, so they actually have a $1 per trip "excessive video toll fee".  Meaning, they are concerned about people with defective tags forcing them to rely too much on the video system, which suggests they plan on doing A LOT Of tag reads.  Supposidly they notify you if there are too many video tolls on your account, and it is then up to you to request a new tag...if you don't the fees kick in.  $1 is enough to get your attention without penalizing a legal user too much...want to save the hefty fees for the people who illegally use the lanes without a PeachPass, with too few people in HOV mode, or by crossing in/out illegally. 

So that's a normal trip.  How does the "enforcement" part work?  Well, first of all, if it detects no Peach Pass but the license plate isn't on file, that means the person doesn't have a properly registered Peach Pass account, which is a violation.  For enforcement purposes, they seem to be very strict on the "one tag per license plate, and you have to keep your license plate info up to date".  So if you move the tag from car to car or you don't have a Peach Pass (or for some strange reason, get a new license plate for the same car, but don't update your account), that's an easily detectable violation.  Then for illegal entry/exit, that's really simple.  For a valid trip on a segment of lane with 10 readers, your tag has to be read (or license plate scanned) at all 10 points sequentially.  If your tag is not detected at entry, or at points 2, 3, or 4, is detected at 5, 6, 7, 8, but not at 9 or 10, then one can logically assume you illegally entered between points 4 and 5, and illegally exited between points 8 and 9.  Bam, two white line violations charged to your account.  If you don't have a Peach Pass, that's 3 violations...2 crossing violations and 1 no-account violation. 

And then if you have your tag set to HOV mode with only one person, you get nailed for BOTH an HOV violation AND a toll violation, according to the fine print. 

So my overall point is that, electronic enforcement can work, if the cameras are spaced close enough together.  Why would anyone enter or exit the lane for very short distances?  What would you gain by doing that?  Not much.  So they would likely have the cameras spaced close enough to capture the "average" illegal crossing violation on at least 1 camera.  Quarter mile sounds pretty reasonable to me.  Hopefully the fines for illegal use of the lane (crossovers, no tag, etc) are high enough to discourage illegal use. 

[lkjljlkj]

It's not going to work, because the lanes aren't going to separated: it's going to be really unsafe and people will use them for "free," regardless of their being a fine attached for improper usage.

I agree, I think no barrier separation is a big mistake.  I use the HOV lanes now on my motorcycle, and I get very nervous when traffic starts to slow, because people will suddenly jerk into them at low speeds when there's a 30mph differential.  It's really dangerous.  Speaking as a motorcyclist, I think it's safer to get out of the HOV lanes when speeds are really slow on the mainlines.

I don't think fines will be a deterrent.  I suspect a decent number of people will sign up for PeachPass & make impulsive decisions to enter wherever they are when it gets really slow.

I also wish they did toll-by-plate like they're doing in Florida now.  I think a decent number of travelers might use them in that case...

[mtantillo]

Well, we'll see what happens.  I'm very interested to hear (and see for myself this fall). 

I still think that with a large enough fine for illegal entry/exit, you can really deter that practice significantly.  $25 (I think that is the "don't have a tag" fine) each time the camera catches you crossing that double white line really can start to add up if you do it often.  Imagine a $3 trip vs. a $28 trip because you couldn't wait just a couple minutes to enter at the  proper location?  Once the media starts publicizing that, people will quickly learn that you don't cross that line for any reason whatsoever.  Do it without a tag and that $3 trip becomes a $53 trip. 

I do know that the speed differential is a problem.  On Northern Virginia's non-separated HOV  lanes on I-66, I won't do more than about 20 MPH more than the adjacent lanes.  I've always secretly wished they'd put spike strips on the double white lines of the HOV  lanes on the LIE in New York. 

I'm not sure how feasible toll-by plate would be for a HOT lane application.  We're not talking about 1 toll point, we're talking about probably 35 or 40 "tag reads" per full length trip, which is a lot of manual review of license plate images if the OCR software can't read it.  At some point, its just not worth it financially.  IIRC, Florida's I-95 HOT lanes are for SunPass tagholders only, even though there is video toll-by-plate in the immediate vicinity.  Likewise, the I-495 HOT lanes in Virginia will be for E-ZPass tagholders only; "switchable" transponders will be issued by VDOT for those wishing to get a free trip in the lanes, but even those free trips have to have the entry/exit point tracked somehow, because VDOT pays the toll for some of those "free" trips if there are too many HOV's in the lanes at any given point. 

Also, local commuters benefit...if out of town travelers were using the HOT lanes, that would drive prices up for the commuters.  If the price is $10, a commuter might not be able to pay that frequently, but an out-of-town traveler just passing through would likely be much more willing to pay out that money if only doing that trip a very limited number of times in a year.  So in otherwords, by artificially limiting access to those who have taken the time to get a pass in advance, that somewhat limits the "impulsive" use of the lanes, and keeps the toll rate down for the loyal users...mostly daily commuters. 

In the near future though, I predict interoperability of Peach Pass with SunPass in FL and/or E-ZPass in the northeast. 

[1995hoo]

....

2) do most places with them have multiple HOT-lane only exits?  On I-85, you have a lot of lanes to cross to make it to an exit, and the only HOT lane exit will be to GA-316... I can't help but wonder if the difficulty in getting over in heavy traffic might wipe out any time savings in the lane over what is a fairly short distance. 

....

I drove in Miami's HOT lanes in June. It was a Saturday and the toll was 25¢ so I said "why not." Miami had only a single HOT-only exit as the lanes now exist; I believe the system is currently about 10 miles long, runs from just south of the so-called Golden Glades Interchange to just north of downtown. "mtantillo" is correct about a SunPass being required to use the facility; alternatively, carpools can ride free, but unlike the Virginia system he described with the switchable E-ZPass, Miami's system requires that the carpool be registered to get the free ride. Because I don't live there, and because my relatives who do have no need to carpool to downtown, I'm not sure how that works in terms of carpools where people rotate the driving in different cars. I assume they allow you to register multiple cars when you sign up. (One thing Virginia's system will do, if it works properly, is to encourage what we call "slugging" here and what people in California call "casual carpooling"–people stand on line at commuter parking areas looking for rides to work and other people going to the same destination come pick them up in order to access the HOV facilities. It frees you from having to try to set up a regular carpool. I suppose in theory you could just register your car and then pick up slugs.)

I seem to recall that in Miami there was but a single toll-reading point just south of where the lanes began going south; I didn't use them going north and so don't know how that was set up. But once you start having multiple exits or entrances you have to provide for a way of reading the info twice, just like a ticket-system toll road.

Virginia's HOT lanes are going to have separate exits and entrances that don't necessarily correspond to the interchanges in the free lanes. Some will correspond as partial HOT interchanges (for example, the full interchange at Braddock Road will be augmented with an HOT southbound exit/northbound entrance); others will be new access points that never existed on the Beltway before (for my purposes, the most notable will be a northbound exit/southbound entrance at US-29, Lee Highway, which has never had direct Beltway access). The closest Virginia's lanes will come to a true full interchange is at I-66, where access to and from the HOT lanes will exist in all directions except between I-66 inside the Beltway and the Beltway north of I-66. Those movements do not exist now either because other nearby roads serve to offer the connection. As I noted in Miami, there was only one exit and it was on the left from the HOT facility. So that answers the question about changing lanes across traffic to exit–you don't. There are no "slip ramps" back and forth like there are on Route 401 in Toronto where you can change between the collector lanes and the express lanes. Once you enter the HOT facility, you either stay in it the whole way or you take one of the HOT-specific exits. The downside of this is that it reduces the lanes' usefulness for people with intermediate destinations who might otherwise want to use the lanes, but on the other hand it helps keep the lanes more open traffic-wise.


Virginia has advertised the HOT lanes as something they don't think most people would use on a daily basis. A common hypothetical I've seen mentioned is a parent who has to work late but has a child in daycare. Apparently daycare places charge massive fees if you don't pick up your child on time, so the parent might prefer to pay the toll to try to reduce the higher daycare fee.

[SSF]

On the way up to a G-Braves game, i snapped some pics of the "new" HOT lane







edited to add: i like how they removed the solid white lines and replaced them with dashed lines.  as Bryant said, still going to be a PITA to go from the leftmost lane to the exit ramp.  There are no left hand exits for the new HOT lane.  the 4th pic has the plate reading technology and the traffic counter I suppose to be able to determine the toll rate.  I assume the purple signs are ones that are just missing the new PeachPass logo.

[mtantillo]

When will it switch from HOV to HOT??

[JREwing78]

Does PeachPass use a compatible transponder to the EZ-Pass toll roads up north?

[SSF]

When will it switch from HOV to HOT??

Soon, according to this http://www.dot.state.ga.us/travelingingeorgia/expresslanes/I85expresslanes/Documents/Press/MediaKit/Project%20Fact%20Sheet%20and%20Timeline.pdf

Does PeachPass use a compatible transponder to the EZ-Pass toll roads up north?

No, it is not EZ-Pass compatible as of now according to Wikipedia.  I couldnt find anything on the Peach Pass FAQ about that so I am assuming that has remained the same.

[mtantillo]

Definitely not compatible with E-ZPass, it uses totally different technology.  E-ZPass uses a box transponder, PeachPass uses a sticker tag (i.e., permanently installed). 

[architect77]

I am saddened that Atlanta's once beautiful, huge, new highways have gotten this bad.

I don't have a car, so last week when I rented a car to go to Fry's, it was my first glimpse of all the HOT lane construction. Gwinnett was once a beautiful place, but now I can't believe county leaders have allowed I-85 to get this ugly, cluttered, billboarded and delapidated.

1) First, why did they replace all the cobra head highway lighting with those short spotlights years ago? I used to love the line of lights hugging every hill guiding us into Atlanta. Don't like the new lights halfway up the old poles.

2) The digital billboards I saw were too bright and changed too quickly. It's a distracting safety hazard.

3) GDOT has erected about 50 new gantries straddling the entire roadway for often a small sign. These are all in addition to about 50 existing gantries already there. Next time I'm gonna count them starting at Shallowford Rd. They should tear them down and start all over with less than half as many support structures.

4) One gantry near Pleasantdale or Jimmy Carter is about 15 degrees off kilter. How they can live with that is beyond me.

5) The toll price signs are HUGE. And I predict the entrance/exit points so close together is going to lead to some bad accidents.

6) Too many signs, one after another, very confusing, especially for average driver to navigate.

7)At least the big fat fonts they're using again look good.

8)The MUTCD guidelines for freeways call for minimal signage that's spaced adequately apart because drivers are making lane decisions while moving at a high rate of speed. Confusion or too much info to quickly process is very bad.

Those "LOCAL EXIT" signs repeating existing signs over to the right should be removed. GDOT expected drivers to see the exit signs before, now they treat the HOV lane as if it were a tunnel.

This HOT LANE re-do isn't going to be a great success, and it seems potentially dangerous with prices prompting people to enter and abort constantly. I predict there will be bad accidents that jump the center divider and involve opposite direction HOT LANE traffic. I hope not.

[SSF]

Heard on WSB this morning that the Peach Pass lanes wont be open til October 1 at least.

[Ace10]

There's a toll facility somewhere in California (I forget where) that mentions one legal reason for crossing the double solid white line - moving over for an emergency vehicle. This toll facility claims that there will be no penalty if a driver crosses the double-white line in response to an emergency vehicle - which I think is good practice, as long as it's safe to move over, of course. Double-white lines can be pretty effective, but only if people actually obey them. But we know better than to expect every driver to know and follow all the rules.

[brownpelican]

1) First, why did they replace all the cobra head highway lighting with those short spotlights years ago? I used to love the line of lights hugging every hill guiding us into Atlanta. Don't like the new lights halfway up the old poles.

I'm pretty sure that happened last decade...I don't like it either.

[codyg1985]

There's a toll facility somewhere in California (I forget where) that mentions one legal reason for crossing the double solid white line - moving over for an emergency vehicle. This toll facility claims that there will be no penalty if a driver crosses the double-white line in response to an emergency vehicle - which I think is good practice, as long as it's safe to move over, of course. Double-white lines can be pretty effective, but only if people actually obey them. But we know better than to expect every driver to know and follow all the rules.

I was wondering about the emergency situations myself where you would need to pull off to the left shoulder. I wonder if one could argue that this violates interstate standards because the toll-free left-most lane doesn't have a dedicated shoulder and you would have to cross into what is essentially a separate, tolled facility (since new or current interstates can't be tolled) in order to stop.

I saw the lanes yesterday, and I think that they will be a PITA for those that are exiting at some of those "local" exits along it. If your destination is beyond the end of the HOT lanes, then I could see it being worth it. Otherwise, it could just be a safety hazard.

[agentsteel53]

I was wondering about the emergency situations myself where you would need to pull off to the left shoulder. I wonder if one could argue that this violates interstate standards because the toll-free left-most lane doesn't have a dedicated shoulder and you would have to cross into what is essentially a separate, tolled facility (since new or current interstates can't be tolled) in order to stop.

in case of emergency (or even inconvenience, like a car ceasing to function), I'm pulling over to the right shoulder or nearest exit.  Lane change laws be damned.

[2Co5_14]

I don't have a car, so last week when I rented a car to go to Fry's, it was my first glimpse of all the HOT lane construction. Gwinnett was once a beautiful place, but now I can't believe county leaders have allowed I-85 to get this ugly, cluttered, billboarded and delapidated.

2) The digital billboards I saw were too bright and changed too quickly. It's a distracting safety hazard.

I totally agree with you about the too tall or electronic billboards being ugly and distracting. Unfortunately advertising is big business here and the politicians favor them, so it's hard for the local communities to fight against them.

3) GDOT has erected about 50 new gantries straddling the entire roadway for often a small sign. These are all in addition to about 50 existing gantries already there. Next time I'm gonna count them starting at Shallowford Rd. They should tear them down and start all over with less than half as many support structures.

There is a reason for that was explained in a previous post by myself and two others:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=204.msg75298#msg75298

Re: Georgia
« Reply #74 on: August 30, 2010, 08:25:59 PM »   
I think the reason that GDOT uses the raised versus the cantilevered signs is because of a storm about a decade ago along I-85 in Gwinnett County.  If I remember correctly, a thunderstorm caused a cantilevered sign south of the Jimmy Carter Blvd. exit to fall down onto the pavement.  In reaction to that mishap, the standard was changed from cantilevered to what you see now, and they have been phasing the cantilevered signs out ever since.  Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that is the reason.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=204.msg75524#msg75524
Re: Georgia
« Reply #75 on: August 30, 2010, 10:18:09 PM »
That sounds reasonable.  I have heard a fellow GDOT employee talk about how much strain those cantilever signs put on the anchor bolts at the base because gravity naturally wants to tip that sign over.  That person said maintenance people were finding loosened anchor bolts in a few locations, so apparently it wasn't just a single incident that caused them to change their sign policy to only install overhead sign bridges or centered supports.

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=204.msg75273#msg75273
Re: Georgia
« Reply #76 on: August 31, 2010, 06:26:33 PM »   
I just today read an extensive research paper about that very problem.  Examples were shown from Florida and the conclusion was to use a hollow pipe with rectangular torsion plates instead of anchor bolts, better tying the post into the structural capacity of the concrete.  See, it's not the anchor bolts that failed, it's actually the concrete that failed first due to torsion and shear, thus putting all of the sign weight on the bolts alone, obviously leading to failure in short order.

[architect77]

Rather than give up on efficient use of cantilevers, I think beefing up the members is how to address the possibility of them falling over. This isn't rocket science...

[codyg1985]

Rather than give up on efficient use of cantilevers, I think beefing up the members is how to address the possibility of them falling over. This isn't rocket science...

It isn't just the overhead members that you would have to beef up. You would need to also beef up the foundation and the bolts anchoring the post to the concrete at ground level since the loading on the sign due to its cantilever nature causes some of the bolts to be in compression (pushed into the concrete) while the other ones are in tension (pulled out of the concrete). This uneven load distribution creates bending in not only the tube connecting the sign bridge with the ground, but also the foundation.

Then there is also the wind load on the sign that would tend to want to twist the tube and the foundation. All in all it would require a beefier structure from the ground up.

[ATLRedSoxFan]

Atlanta's HOT lanes are officially open....
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/georgias-first-hot-lanes-open-traffic/nDyY8/

[RoadWarrior56]

I was on that stretch of I-85 today.  The HOT lane was totally empty for the 10 miles I was on the road.  Not surprising, since many people (including me) have yet to get a Peach Pass, plus the fact that there was no congestion in the general purpose lanes.  Who wants to pay toll when there is no time savings?