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Proposed
I-95
HOT Lanes A Mixed Bag:
They'd Pay Their Own
Way
but Inspire More
Sprawl
By
Bob Burke
On
a good day, Scott Hirons’ 45-mile commute from
his Stafford County home to his tech-consulting
job in downtown Washington takes just 70 minutes.
Not bad.
But
if there’s an accident or any other delay,
Northern Virginia’s congested Interstate 95
becomes a miserable creep. A few weeks ago just
the sight of a cop handing out tickets to
violators in the high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV)
lanes – open only to vehicles with at least
three people – slowed traffic to a crawl. “It
took about two and a half hours to get to work,
even in the HOV lanes,” Hirons says. “It was
horrible.”
Now,
relief from such vagaries is now being dangled
before commuters. Two private-sector groups have
offered competing plans to build new lanes down
the middle of I-95, and open them to HOV users and
anyone willing to pay a toll. They’re called HOT
lanes, for high-occupancy tolls. HOT lanes, a
concept that has worked elsewhere, use
private-sector capitalism to add highway capacity
that the state isn’t willing to pay for: The proposals advanced by Clark Construction
and Fluor Enterprises require no tax dollars.
HOT
lanes come to Virginia in the midst of a debate
over whether the state has the money to sustain a
viable transportation system over the next 20
years. Proponents of more transportation funding
say the state should raise its 17.5-cent-a-gallon
gas tax, which is among the lowest in the nation,
to meet billions of dollars in unmet needs.
But
opponents of tax increases point to alternative
strategies, such as public-private partnerships
and toll funding. The I-95 HOT lanes would go
right through the home district of Bill Howell,
Republican speaker of the House of Delegates and a
big supporter of toll funding and public-private
deals.
Fluor
has already won a contract to build HOT lanes on a
14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway in Northern
Virginia. Depending on how the fight over state
funding turns out, HOT-lane proposals could start
popping up in other congested areas, from Hampton
Roads to Northern Virginia’s crowded Interstate
66.
HOT
lane supporters tout the free-market approach:
Traffic levels are controlled by “variable
pricing” - if the new lanes get too crowded, the
tolls go up to discourage others from entering.
The ability to skirt around gridlock would give
commuters from the region’s outer suburbs the
certainty they crave. It’s not only the long
drive that frustrates commuters, it’s the
unexpected delays that mean missing a business
meeting or their kid’s school play.
To
backers, HOT lanes sound like a win-win idea all
the way around. They won’t cost taxpayers a
dime, and the only people who pay the tolls are
those who are willing to. But there is a downside.
By expanding the capacity of a major highway
corridor, HOT lanes will likely put even more
pressure on the road networks on the fringe of
Northern Virginia’s congestion -- and the cost
of fixing that problem will belong to the
state.
Virginia
can’t keep up financially because its
transportation planners “don’t look at the
transportation and land-use implications of these
projects,” said Stewart Schwartz, executive
director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.
“We’re not getting a full and fair
analysis.”
Details
of the two I-95 HOT lane proposals were presented
in early June. Both call for widening the 28-mile
existing HOV lanes in Arlington, Fairfax and
Prince William counties, extending them south,
halfway to Richmond, and converting them into HOT
lanes. The proposals would install more on and off
ramps than the current HOV lanes. HOV users, buses
and emergency vehicles would continue to ride for
free.
Clark
Construction is leading an $815 million proposal
that would add a third lane to the existing HOV
lanes and extend them almost to Fredericksburg.
Clark also would add general-purpose lanes on I-95
in the Fredericksburg area, buy rail cars for the
Virginia Railway Express and expand park-and-ride
commuter lots. “I think we have a comprehensive
solution to the corridor,” says Garry Palleschi,
a manager with Shirley Contracting, a partner with
Clark.
The
competing proposal, led by Fluor Enterprises, has
an estimated price of about $913 million. It also
would add a third lane to the existing HOV lanes.
It would extend new lanes 25 miles south just past
Fredericksburg, but its extension would be two
lanes wide. Fluor also proposes creating a
bus-rapid-transit system (BRT) with 11 stations
scattered along the HOT lanes and linking to the
existing transit network in the Washington region.
Fluor
spokesman Herb Morgan says the BRT system will
have the biggest impact on reducing congestion
throughout the corridor. “You end up with more
people taking the bus in,” he said. Plus,
existing bus operators can increase their service
because they can meet their schedules. “When you
introduce that level of certainty, it benefits
everybody.”
Extending
HOT/HOV lanes could have a huge impact on the
already rampant growth in Stafford and
Spotsylvania counties near Fredericksburg, already
one of the fastest-growing regions in the state.
According to a recent study, nearly 40 percent of
workers commute to jobs outside the area. Many
workers moved there, of course, because houses
cost less and the commute was tolerable. Now, the
commute is getting worse while housing prices are
soaring – up 36 percent in Stafford in the past
year, and up 30 percent in Spotsylvania.
Gary
Pash, a Stafford supervisor, hopes HOT/HOV lanes
will slow that trend by giving commuters a chance
to buy lower-cost houses farther south. “It
would probably increase the rate of growth for
counties south of us," he says, "and it
may provide a little bit of relief, I’m hoping,
for us.”
Two
huge housing developments underway in Caroline
County - about 15 to 20 miles below the end of the
proposed HOT lanes – could add more than 6,000
houses. Prices would cost thousands less than in
Northern Virginia, where the average price for
house runs nearly $400,000, according to George
Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis.
Today,
Caroline is just outside the region’s suburban
sprawl. It has about 23,000 residents, while
neighboring Spotsylvania has nearly 108,000.
“There’s a lot of people moving here from
Northern Virginia,” says Caroline County
Administrator Percy Ashcraft. “If the [HOT]
lanes come south… they’re probably tickled to
death about that.”
But
Caroline’s roads are already inadequate,
Ashcraft says. The county is considering joining
the regional Potomac and Rappahannock
Transportation Commission so it can levy a 2
percent sales tax on gasoline sales. That taxing
authority was created largely to support the
Virginia Railway Express. But Ashcraft says if the
county joins, most of its money will go toward
roads “because the state hasn’t been able to
provide the money we need to make a difference.”
The
HOT lane proposals also face opposition from
slugs, the slang term for commuters who ride for
free by providing the extra bodies that make
drivers eligible for the HOV lanes. Hirons, who
has formed the “Committee to Save HOV” to
rally support, argues that drivers won’t stop
for slugs if they can just pay a toll. He predicts
the HOT lanes still will be overcrowded. “It’s
a very affluent area,” he says. “We don’t
believe you could raise the toll high enough to
discourage people from using it.”
The
spokesmen for both proposals say slugs have
nothing to fear. Palleschi says that federal rules
require that the HOV system be preserved. Morgan
says saving money will be the incentive for HOV
drivers to pick up slugs. “I still see it as
being a very viable alternative to get to work."
Key
questions such as environmental impacts, actual
toll prices and traffic levels won’t be answered
fully unless the state picks one of the proposals,
which would trigger more studies. On July 12 an
advisory panel of state and regional
transportation officials and engineers will hold
the first of four meetings to review the two
options.
Hirons,
though, thinks one thing is certain – HOT lanes
will disrupt the system of sharing rides that
commuters have already worked out. “We’re
already using roads that we’ve paid for through
our tax dollars,” he said. “And now we’re
going to be asked to pay again.”
Bacon's
Rebellion News Service
June
27, 2005
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