Northern Virginia’s Transportation Planning Board has approved plans to build express toll lanes on Interstate 95 and Interstate 395. Next step: State officials must negotiate an agreement with Fluor Virginia and Transurban, the companies that proposed it, reports Eric Weiss with the Washington Post.
The I-95/395 project would convert two carpool lanes into three high-occupancy toll, or HOT, lanes from the Potomac River to Stafford County. Tolls would fluctuate based on the traffic volume to ensure that the lanes remain free-flowing at speeds of 65 miles per hour outside the Beltway and 55 mph inside. The lanes could open by 2010.
Writes Weiss:
In exchange for permission to build the road and keep toll revenue, the companies have also promised to pay for $390 million in new bus service, six park-and-ride lots with 3,000 spaces, interchanges and an extension of the roadway to eliminate a daily bottleneck in Dumfries.
Not only will this project will make a huge difference to travel in the I-95 corridor, it could prove to the be one of the most important transportation projects in the history of Virginia. If it works as billed, it could legitimize the concept of congestion pricing, an idea that has yet to generate much enthusiasm in the state, and create a template for other projects.
