HOT Commodity HOT lanes on Interstate 95 could make way for public-private partnerships and congestion pricing across Virginia. But questions about the project linger, and public support is fragile.   The origins of Interstates 95 and 395 date back to 1950 with the construction of the 14th Street Bridge across the Potomac River. At the time, transportation planners envisioned that I-95 would cut straight through the capital city, but by 1977, it was clear that the project would never be completed. Washington was left with a very large driveway dumping thousands of commuters at the city's doorstep.   Throughout their long history, I-95 and I-395 have departed from the planner's original vision in more ways than one. As Northern Virginia grew and more cars squeezed onto the highway, authorities installed a system of bus lanes. Commuters never really took to the buses, so the bus lanes were converted to HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lanes, accessible to automobiles with four or more passengers. In time, the limit was relaxed to three passengers.   The HOV lanes proved more successful than elsewhere in the country, giving rise to the remarkable phenomenon of "slugging." Motorists voluntarily picked up riders, known as slugs, to meet the criteria to enter the HOV lanes. No one planned for the slugging phenomenon -- it arose spontaneously from the commuting community.   Now, it appears, I-95/395 will undergo another evolution: the transformation of HOV lanes into HOT lanes. With development spreading to the Rappahannock River and beyond, the HOV/slugging system is showing signs of strain. Crippled by rising maintenance costs and voter resistance to higher taxes, the Virginia Department of Transportation lacks the funds to expand the Interstate's capacity on its own. Under a public-private partnership, the Commonwealth of Virginia will rely upon a private company to inject its own capital into highway improvements, recouping its investment through tolls that vary by time of day, according to the level of congestion.   HOT lanes promise not only to add capacity to the overloaded Interstate by extending the HOT lanes as far as Fredericksburg, they will optimize traffic flow by regulating the number of automobiles entering the HOT lanes.   Congestion pricing has proven successful in several European and Asian cities and in the United States. Variable-price tolls have worked well in Orange County, Calif., since 1995, in the Interstate 15 corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles, and in roads in Texas and Minnesota. The Kaine administration sees the I-95/395 HOT model -- HOT lanes financed and operated by a public-private partnership -- as the means to upgrade other critical Northern Virginia transportation corridors, including Interstate 495, Interstate 66 and the Dulles Toll Road.   While the Kaine administration is moving aggressively on the HOT lane project, many questions remain. What role will there be for mass transit? What will happen to the slugs? Will the project open up new areas for auto-dependent development? The lack of transparency in the contract negotiations and seemingly laggard attempts to involve the public have not inspired confidence.   The HOT lane idea for I-95 was first proposed by a consortium of builders including Clark Construction Group Inc., Shirley Contracting Company LLC, and Koch Performance Roads Inc. and submitted to the state on September 24, 2003.   Under the Public Private Transportation Act of 1995, the Commonwealth put out a call for competing proposals. One was submitted by Fluor Virginia Inc., subsidiary to an American engineering and construction company. Fluor and its Australian partner Transurban proposed converting existing HOV lanes to HOT lanes, but added the wrinkle of adding to the Interstate's capacity and adding a mass transit component to the system. (Since then Transurban has ensconced itself as a major Virginia player by taking over the troubled Pocahontas Parkway, a toll road southeast of Richmond.)   Both proposals were approved by an initial review committee and then by the Commonwealth Transportation Board, a body appointed by the governor which sets Virginia’s transportation policy. An advisory panel of experts selected the Fluor proposal in November 2005. The Virginia Department of Transportation and Fluor began negotiating three months later and signed an interim agreement in October. VDOT held five citizen information meetings across the corridor this summer. The final agreement has not been reached, so many details remain to be worked out.   Under the Fluor proposal, the existing two reversible HOV lanes from Washington to Prince William County will be widened to three HOT lanes, while two HOT lanes will be extended 28 miles south to Massaponax in Spotsylvania County. Depending upon how much revenue the project generates, the partnership will spend millions of dollars building new park-and-ride lots and enhancements to the bus system, such as improvements to bus access points, a new bus-only on-ramp at Eads Street near the Pentagon, and more frequent bus service.   Exactly which strategies will be chosen remain to be decided by a Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) study. The intention is to create a plan which preserves existing transit and HOV ridership in the I-95/395 corridor while using the expanded network to attract new riders.   DRPT has found a lot to build on. At present, there are 500 independent vanpools in the area. More than 90 buses per hour go through the portion of the corridor currently served by HOV lanes. Some of these are private, some public transit like the Fairfax Connector. In the southern portion, where the two new lanes are planned, there are 12 buses per hour, which are mostly private buses like Quicks and Martz.   There are 19 slug locations in private lots throughout the area. These lots are self-organized and self-run -- sometimes by major employers such as the Pentagon. There are 15 park-and-ride lots operated by the counties or VDOT to serve transit users. There are ten Metrorail trains running every hour and two Virginia Railway Express trains per hour with ten stops between Fredericksburg and Union Station in Washington. There are four DRPT-funded rideshare programs and telework sites in Woodbridge, Stafford, and Fredericksburg.   A Bus Rapid Transit system was suggested when this project was first proposed, and this will be considered as a possible option, along with increased Virginia Railway Express service and an extension of Metrorail south to Woodbridge. DRPT Project Manager Tanya Husick, who is heading the study, says that there will definitely be increased bus service and more park and ride lots.   Transurban has offered to build new bus stations in Alexandria, two in Fairfax County, and one each in Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. New Park and Ride lots are proposed in Fairfax, Prince William and Stafford counties, with the land for two more.   The state expects the public-private partnership to contribute between $250 million and $500 million over 20 years and is still studying the best multi-modal system it can build for the money, reports Husick.   An innovative feature of the original HOV system -- its reversible lanes -- will stay in place. During morning and evening rush hours, the lanes on I-95 and I-395 can be reversed to travel north or south to handle the extra traffic.   The Commonwealth of Virginia will continue to own the Interstate but will lease it to Fluor and Transurban for construction, tolling and maintenance. The state will own the new lanes, lots, and bus stations as well. The private companies will assume the risk for generating income from the tolls in exchange for constructing, operating and maintaining the HOT lanes and transit system, says Ken Daley, Transurban’s Vice President of International Development.   Daley expects most drivers to use EZ-Pass transponders to tell the automatic readers whether they are toll payers or HOV users. Infrared cameras will help troopers spot HOV cheaters and drivers lacking an EZ-Pass. Transurban engineers are using their existing facilities at the Pocahontas Parkway near Richmond to test the technology, which Daley calls “encouraging” and at an “advanced stage” of effectiveness.   With infrared cameras, drivers and passengers appear as dots. The technology occasionally misses shorter passengers. In such cases, troopers will have to visually confirm the number of occupants before making a decision. HOT lane drivers with one or no passengers and no EZ-Pass will have their licenses photographed and a bill sent to them.   Electric signs will state the price of entering the next section of HOT lane, which will be locked in when drivers enter it. Signs also will indicate likely prices on downstream segments, which are subject to change. Drivers will be given the choice of leaving the HOT lane if the price of the next length is too high.   HOV and transit users will receive priority according to Daley, so that during times of unusual stress on the system, such as an accident on one of the regular lanes or on a HOT lane, prices will rise to ensure that HOV and transit users can still enjoy unimpeded travel for free. There is no limit on potential prices, so free-flowing conditions will be the standard, rather than maximizing the profit from tolls. Husick says that maintaining free flow is a stipulation in the agreement. Daley explains that Fluor-Transurban expects to make adequate profit while providing this concession to HOV riders.   Despite the benefits of added capacity, upgraded mass transit and the option of paying to zoom past gridlocked traffic, the public is not entirely sold on HOT lanes. A 2005 Washington Post poll reported that 55 percent, a slim majority of Virginians, supported the pricing strategy. The broader public focuses on technical aspects of the projects, such as how the system can distinguish between HOV and HOT cars. Public interest groups raise questions whether added capacity to I-95 will encourage the spread of dysfunctional, auto-dependent development. Some observers also criticize the lack of transparency in the contract negotiations.   Reid Ewing, a research and associate professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Maryland, has studied the connection between transportation decisions and urban sprawl. “Sprawl is in large part due to the ridiculously low cost of driving,” which is “highly subsidized,” says Ewing. “Making it more expensive to travel has to result in more compact development. One reason that Europe is more compact than the U.S. is that the cost of auto use is higher there.”   Studies of gasoline prices have shown that demand for driving is elastic. A doubling of prices for gasoline over a long period will make people drive 30 percent fewer miles overall. Pricing roads produces a similar effect.  This is the opposite of what the traditional transportation strategy - building more roads - produces. New highway capacity can induce demand by reducing the time cost of driving greater distances. If enough people choose to move farther out and commute greater distances, congestion can actually get worse than it would have been without the added capacity.   No one expects HOT lanes to produce a Smart Growth utopia in Northern Virginia, however. Professor Ewing notes that HOT lanes could give rise to “higher density, auto-oriented subdivisions” which “can be very desolate.” He urges localities in the area to adopt design codes to ensure attractiveness and friendliness to pedestrians.   Concerns about the contract negotiations cannot be set aside so easily. “Secrecy surrounds PPTA projects,” says Stewart Schwartz, director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.   An analysis of the Public Private Transportation Act of 1995 by the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center noted that the act has “undercut … the role of public input and the [Commonwealth Transportation Board].” The PPTA process allowed only two real options for I-95/395: those proffered by Clark Construction and by Fluor Transurban. A full, rigorous review of possibilities with full public participation and consent would have been preferable. The result might have been the same, but something better might have resulted.   The danger of keeping important public agreements secret has been shown recently in the case of the Dulles Rail Project, where the contract was only released for public review after it was signed, too late for its flaws to be exposed and corrected.   Private companies maintain that they should be able to keep certain categories of proprietary information confidential. However, Transurban’s Ken Daley recalls several times when VDOT denied requests to keep certain information confidential.    Another flaw in the PPTA process is the weak participation of the public in the early stages of a project, Schwartz says. “The PPTA program undermines the National Environmental Protection Act in that VDOT jumps on any PPTA offer from a private contractor and doesn’t look at the full range of transportation and land use alternatives.”   VDOT is currently conducting an environmental impact analysis while the private firms move ahead with their own studies. VDOT’s website shows a full timeline of the public involvement steps that have been taken, and spokesperson Jeff Caldwell notes that there will be many more opportunities for public involvement.   Transurban’s Daley says that “the thing you have to say with VDOT is everything is transparent.” The private partners, too, he adds, will be more active in informing and engaging the public.   The I-95/395 HOT lanes project is an important step forward for Virginia, but VDOT, DRPT, and Fluor Transurban have a lot of work ahead to catch Virginia up with this project, prove its value, and ensure that the public voice is heard and respected. Intensive public participation that goes well beyond public information meetings to real public decision-making, braced with a rigorous commitment to transparency, is necessary to ensure that this project is not simply a technical and financial success, but a public success as well.   -- Sept. 4, 2007