The CTB approved Option A, one of four options, to relieve chronic congestion on Interstate 64 and the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel.
Wow! The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved yesterday a $4 billion plan to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and widen twelve miles of Interstate 64 from four lanes to six. Said Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne after the vote: “Historic day for Hampton Roads and the state.”
The Virginian-Pilot provides these details:
The additional lane capacity in each direction would likely be high-occupancy toll lanes, which would require that a car carry three people to avoid a toll during peak hours. Vehicles with one or two people could choose to pay a variable toll based on congestion during peak hours. The Commonwealth Transportation Board will be able to weigh in later on the “managed lane” concept.
Buses would use the new lanes, too.
The existing lanes will remain free.
Funding will come from tolls and bonds, regional gas tax revenue, and federal loans.
Bacon’s bottom line: Northern Virginians have had to learn to live with HOT lanes, and now Hampton Roadsters will, too. Nobody likes paying the tolls, but the money to widen highways and build the tunnel has to come from somewhere.
Should Hampton Roadsters (or Virginians) pay higher gasoline taxes to improvements on Interstate 64? Nobody likes gasoline taxes either — especially if they’re not the ones benefiting from the project.
Should VDOT toll the new tunnel and its companion tunnels in order to lower the tolls? That, too, is a non-starter. No one likes paying a toll where they weren’t paying one before.
How about tolling just the new tunnel? That’s the plan! No one loses. If traffic is logjammed and you desperately need to get to the other side of the river, you can pay a toll (which will vary, depending upon demand) for an expedited trip. But you don’t have to pay the toll if you don’t want to. You can join the schlubs in the slow lanes, and you’re no worse off than before.
If you carpool or ride a bus, you’re better off. You can use the HOT lane for free, and you don’t wait in the schlub lanes.
Even if you’re a schlub, you’re probably better off. The slow lanes will be less congested than they would have been without the project. The HOT lanes will divert toll payers, carpoolers and buses who would have been clogging the slow lanes with you.
I haven’t seen how the deal or financing is structured, so I can’t comment on the soundness of the Interstate 64 plan. But construction of a HOT lane is both morally and politically defensible.
