This is a great day for Virginia. The Kaine administration has finalized all the agreements needed to start construction in the spring on the $1.4 billion HOT-lanes project on the Washington Beltway. The public-private partnership will add two lanes in each direction along the 14-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway, increasing capacity from 8 lanes to 12, upgrade 12 interchanges, and invest $250 in upgrading bridges, overpasses and signs. Construction is scheduled for completion by 2013.
Virginia will partner with two companies, Fluor and Transurban, under an 80-year agreement in which the partners will collect tolls from motorists using the HOT lanes. Toll prices will vary according to traffic volume, set to levels that will ensure the free flow of traffic. Rush hour fares could reach $5 to $6, reports Tim Craig with the Washington Post.
The lanes will be free for carpools of three or more people and make bus service practicable. Buses don’t serve the Beltway currently because traffic jams make scheduling impossible. If bus ridership on the Beltway reaches the same levels as on Interstates 95/395 (see “Interstate 95: Kissing Good-Bye to the Solo Commuter?”) the project could do even more to relieve traffic congestion than implied by the 50-percent increase in the number of lanes.
The federal government will contribute $209 million towards the project, and the state another $200 million. The Commonwealth of Virginia will continue to own the Beltway, while Fluor-Transurban functions as a private contractor. “It is a very, very complicated project and a very, very complicated financial transaction,” said Secretary of Transporation Pierce Homer. “There are now hard financial commitments. This is a construction and a financing contract.”
Bacon’s Bottom Line: This project represents one of the signature achievements of the Kaine administration. Although the idea originated in the Warner era, it took enormous work to hammer out the details. The Beltway HOT lanes will provide the first major expansion of Interstate capacity in Northern Virginia in many, many years. More importantly, the project acknowledges that the Commonwealth cannot address the increasing number of cars on the road through open-ended increases in highway capacity. The deal uses congestion pricing to allocate scarce highway capacity while also encouraging people to carpool, ride in vans or take the bus.
