Northern Virginia HOT Lanes

[tolbs17]

Widening isn't going to happen, certainly not along 395. For one, there are legal non-competition restrictions on improvements along the corridor as part of the HOT lane deal, plus even if there weren't, there simply isn't any space and there's no political interest in it (or desire for that matter).

I-395 is not I-95. There's plenty of room on I-95.

And of course there's no desire. That would involve the state actually spending money and not giving the work to private investors and letting them toll every and all new capacity.

I've lost faith in VDOT for any large I-95 improvement. Until they show they're willing to actually do the work or at least study it, they're a joke. They're expanding I-95 in North Carolina, a freeway with 50,000 - 60,000 AADT to 8-lanes. We can't even do that to a freeway with 200,000 AADT, and don't tell me the magical HO/T lanes solve that problem 100%. They don't.

Yeah they got room to widen it. They should. They are focusing on express lanes. I think they should widen the GP lanes to 10 or even 12 if possible.

[Beltway]

I've lost faith in VDOT for any large I-95 improvement. Until they show they're willing to actually do the work or at least study it, they're a joke. They're expanding I-95 in North Carolina, a freeway with 50,000 - 60,000 AADT to 8-lanes. We can't even do that to a freeway with 200,000 AADT, and don't tell me the magical HO/T lanes solve that problem 100%. They don't.

Right.  102 miles of GP widening VA I-95, a 43 mile Interstate I-95 bypass, and 30 miles of reversibles construction, and Sprjus4 says VDOT hasn't improved I-95, and he again invokes the magical Tar Heel State.

[tolbs17]

I've lost faith in VDOT for any large I-95 improvement. Until they show they're willing to actually do the work or at least study it, they're a joke. They're expanding I-95 in North Carolina, a freeway with 50,000 - 60,000 AADT to 8-lanes. We can't even do that to a freeway with 200,000 AADT, and don't tell me the magical HO/T lanes solve that problem 100%. They don't.

Sprjus4 says VDOT hasn't improved I-95, and he again invokes the magical Tar Heel State.

They are going to improve it at least 5-10 years hopefully. It sucks

[sprjus4]

Here's the reality...

102 miles of GP widening VA I-95

80s. 40 years ago.

a 43 mile Interstate I-95 bypass

80s and 90s. 30 - 40 years ago.

and 30 miles of reversibles construction

Transurban and privatized toll road. Hardly any relief to the GP lanes and of course they benefit you because you fly by at 65+ mph paying $20 during rush hour as you watch everybody jammed up in traffic by a horrible flaw in VDOT's design for a lane drop, and congestion thruout overall, who can't afford it or who can but don't feel like wasting their money on that. I don't count that as a improvement to the GP lanes on VA I-95. Again, VDOT has failed in this category by handing their work off to private companies looking to make a profit.




VDOT has not done any massive expansions on I-95 between Woodbridge and Richmond to the GP lanes since the 80s and have no plan to. It's an overloaded 6-lane freeway that warrants expansion and has for at least two decades. The HO/T lanes haven't done much overall except for people like you who see them as a tremendous improvement because you use them every opportunity you get. Sure, they're nice to have, but a free general purpose improvement is -needed-. That's quite obvious.

However, VDOT is being lazy by again giving all the work to Transurban and calling it an improvement, the solution to I-95 congestion issues, and the way to unlock gridlock. It's quite obvious based on the latest capacity improvements once Transurban came in and took all the hard lifting off VDOT's hands...

Before Transurban:
Springfield Interchange
Woodrow Wilson Bridge Replacement
I-95 8-lane widening from I-495 to VA-123

After Transurban:
I-95 HO/T lanes
I-495 HO/T lanes
I-395 HO/T lanes
I-66 HO/T lanes
I-495 HO/T lane extension
I-95 HO/T lane extension

All of the above are -facts-.

To be honest, I-95 should have been widened to 8-lanes in the 80s between Richmond and the Beltway. A similar approach to how I-95 is being widened in North Carolina. Again, poor future planning on VDOT's part. They did I-295 right at least.

[AlexandriaVA]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

[cpzilliacus]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

I do not like VDOT-bashing, because most of it is NOT justified.  I always find it amusing that some of the most-enthused bashers of VDOT are Virginia residents.

[jeffandnicole]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

Happens a lot with NJ as well!

[odditude]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

these people are the ones most likely to be using those freeways for long-distance travel. adding an hour of traffic to a 4-hour trip is significant. adding 2 hours of traffic to an 8-hour trip might mean a hotel stay - not everyone can tolerate a car for long stretches at a time.

[Beltway]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

these people are the ones most likely to be using those freeways for long-distance travel. adding an hour of traffic to a 4-hour trip is significant. adding 2 hours of traffic to an 8-hour trip might mean a hotel stay - not everyone can tolerate a car for long stretches at a time.

These are also the people who usually can avoid the heart of rush hours, when traffic volumes are lower, and when the HOT tolls are a lot lower than the rush hour cost that keeps getting repeated here.

[sprjus4]

These are also the people who usually can avoid the heart of rush hours, when traffic volumes are lower, and when the HOT tolls are a lot lower than the rush hour cost that keeps getting repeated here.

Yeah, not everyone can just "easily avoid the heart of rush hour". You may be able to, good for you.

[odditude]

Funny how the people from nowhere, VA tend to get more worked up over the amount of freeway lanes than locals...

these people are the ones most likely to be using those freeways for long-distance travel. adding an hour of traffic to a 4-hour trip is significant. adding 2 hours of traffic to an 8-hour trip might mean a hotel stay - not everyone can tolerate a car for long stretches at a time.

These are also the people who usually can avoid the heart of rush hours, when traffic volumes are lower, and when the HOT tolls are a lot lower than the rush hour cost that keeps getting repeated here.

the original comment was regarding the number of lanes, not the toll amount. also, on longer drives, traffic in one area can lead to a cascading failure of your driving schedule - "avoiding rush hour" can quickly turn into "being stuck in the middle of it."

[Beltway]

These are also the people who usually can avoid the heart of rush hours, when traffic volumes are lower, and when the HOT tolls are a lot lower than the rush hour cost that keeps getting repeated here.

the original comment was regarding the number of lanes, not the toll amount. also, on longer drives, traffic in one area can lead to a cascading failure of your driving schedule - "avoiding rush hour" can quickly turn into "being stuck in the middle of it."

I'm sure that can happen, but in 50 years of traveling thru the Baltimore-Washington area I am hard pressed to think of a case where that has happened to me personally.  Highest peak hours are a small part of the 24 hour day and simply on a basis of randomization it is not hard to avoid them if you are a long distance traveler.

[plain]

I think we can all agree that I-95 should have 8 GP lanes between I-295 & I-495 (really to Woodbridge nowadays as north of here already has the 8 lanes).

The express lanes should go no further south than VA 3. Most of the DC commuter traffic south of here use the next exit (Exit 126 near Massaponax) and traffic is free flowing past this point even during the rush, and really only becomes an issue Fri-Sun.

[sprjus4]

I think we can all agree that I-95 should have 8 GP lanes between I-295 & I-495 (really to Woodbridge nowadays as north of here already has the 8 lanes).

The express lanes should go no further south than VA 3. Most of the DC commuter traffic south of here use the next exit (Exit 126 near Massaponax) and traffic is free flowing past this point even during the rush, and really only becomes an issue Fri-Sun.

Agree on all points. I would also point out any new GP capacity added should be un-tolled and free to all, similar to the 8-lane widening that occurred north of Woodbridge. That would have the maximum benefit to all motorists.

Shoulder lanes should also be considered during peak hours north of Fredericksburg along with 4 GP lanes each way. That way you can get it up to 5 lanes each way plus the HO/T capacity. That would be a significant benefit.

[vdeane]

Yeah, "avoiding rush hour" is not an exact science.  Sometimes not all trip goals can't be accommodated while doing that, and sometimes traffic interferes.  Two examples:

1. When I went to the Providence City Meet, it would have been nice to avoid rush hour traffic, but such wasn't possible with trying to accomodate my clinching goals, not have to get up way too early that morning, having a hotel that wasn't too expensive or a dump, and getting to said hotel in time to watch the evening news and then have dinner.  Something had to give, and in this case it was avoiding rush hour.  Fortunately, Providence is not I-95 between DC and Richmond.

2. On the first day on my way to my cousin's wedding in Jacksonville, traffic was (mostly) the culprit.  The plan was to leave at 8 sharp, quickly head down to Maryland, have a quick lunch at the service area, get to DC in the early afternoon before traffic got too bad (with some clinches while meandering around Baltimore/DC), then escape down to Richmond riding the wave ahead of the worst of the traffic, arriving at my hotel around 5.  Now I'll admit, some of this is on me - I didn't actually leave until close to 8:30 because I hadn't yet had a handle on how long it actually takes me to be all packed and ready to go for a trip (in my defense, packing for a roadtrip, a wedding, and a normal gathering with the other side of the family all in one trip really threw me off with how much I actually needed to pack).  Aside from some traffic entering Delaware, things were mostly fine for the first half of the trip, but then things got horrid.  My first bad delays were a combination weather/construction on I-895, then a ton of rain delays on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, bad traffic just about everywhere in DC (seriously, it took my 30-60 minutes to get from the 11th Street Bridge to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge), such that I didn't even get to the Springfield interchange until 5... the height of rush hour (to be fair, I was also stupid and assumed that the $20 HOT lane charge was due to the merge at the end and thought I was beyond the worst of the traffic since the general purpose lanes were free-flow at the time; I was not, and I came to deeply regret getting off the HOT lanes within 5 minutes of doing so).  I didn't end up getting to my hotel until 7:30.  Fortunately I had already seen Richmond's local news on a previous trip, but in order to watch the series finale of Once Upon a Time (I have neither cable nor Hulu; I'm old school and use an antenna despite living in a ground floor apartment with LOTS of multipath interference), I had to cut out both dinner that night and my planned clinch of I-295 the next day (as part of I-295 would have been while getting dinner the night before, and because I now had to accommodate breakfast that day; at least Wawa has good breakfast sandwiches).

[sprjus4]

My first bad delays were a combination weather/construction on I-895, then a ton of rain delays on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway

Another reason I prefer US-50 / US-301 / DE-1 over I-95. It completely bypasses Baltimore and takes you straight to DC. Unfortunately, no good road around the I-95 corridor south of DC exists, or I-495.

[vdeane]

My first bad delays were a combination weather/construction on I-895, then a ton of rain delays on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway

Another reason I prefer US-50 / US-301 / DE-1 over I-95. It completely bypasses Baltimore and takes you straight to DC. Unfortunately, no good road around the I-95 corridor south of DC exists, or I-495.

I-95 was moving fine (though not free-flow) on the parts I was on prior to the springfield interchange (though I believe it was fully closed in downtown Baltimore due to an incident).  Unfortunately, I had not yet clinched the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, which was stop and go much of the way, nor DC 295/I-295, I-895, or the DC portion of I-66, nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

[sprjus4]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

[tolbs17]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

Is US301 better to use than I-95?

[sprjus4]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

Is US301 better to use than I-95?

If there's not heavy congestion (usually on peak weekends) near the Bay Bridge, then IMO yes it is.

[Alps]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

Is US301 better to use than I-95?

Define better. From where, to where? What day and time? Coming north on a Sunday evening, 301 is generally quite a bit better than 95. On a weekend morning, 95 is likely going to be better. On a Friday afternoon, don't head north on 301.

[sprjus4]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

Is US301 better to use than I-95?

Define better. From where, to where? What day and time? Coming north on a Sunday evening, 301 is generally quite a bit better than 95. On a weekend morning, 95 is likely going to be better. On a Friday afternoon, don't head north on 301.

I think he's referring to between MD I-295 and DE I-295.

Either I-95 or US-50 / US-301 / DE-1.

My preference is the latter when congestion is not present at the Bay Bridge.

I had no problems taking US-50 / US-301 / DE-1 on a Sunday afternoon northbound and Saturday evening southbound.

[tolbs17]

nor had I yet realized that I was already at the point of having to cut out clinches or give up getting to my hotel at a reasonable time.

I had planned on clinching I-95 on the return trip between Wilmington and DC via Baltimore, though I ended up giving in to DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the return mostly because while I wanted to clinch it, I wanted a stress free, traffic free, ride back. Even though I-95 looked mostly green, I knew from being on the packed Turnpike before that, it was going to be packed. DE-1 / US-301 / US-50 on the other hand was very light traffic, and easily able to maintain 70-75 mph (despite the ridiculously slow speed limit of 55 mph for a 40 mile rural stretch), plus it's always a bonus crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, which conveniently happened to be at sunset providing a nice drive across.

Also, I-95 is $8 more expensive heading northbound, and $4 more expensive heading southbound. A nice savings, and for fun I chose to shunpike the state line toll recently added on US-301 which added only 5 minutes, and saved another $3. I can say from doing that, there a decent amount of traffic on the shunpiking route, more than I expected, including a few trucks illegally (which should be legal).

Is US301 better to use than I-95?

Define better. From where, to where? What day and time? Coming north on a Sunday evening, 301 is generally quite a bit better than 95. On a weekend morning, 95 is likely going to be better. On a Friday afternoon, don't head north on 301.

in Northern Virginia and at 6pm! Lol i was referring to that. Close to the Springfield interchange

[Beltway]

HOT lane tolls on my trip today to the MD Eastern Shore, full length both times. 
Bypassed significant congestion spots on both trips.

95 NB Express Lanes:  $9.30 - entered 9:51 am
95 SB Express Lanes:  $8.20 - entered 9:13 pm

[1995hoo]

WTOP reports something that seems like it would have been expected (as to the result, that is): VDOT has decreased tolls a bit on I-66 and average speeds have also decreased.

https://wtop.com/dc-transit/2019/08/i-66-speeds-drop-as-virginia-lowers-tolls/