Steve Burns
WMAL.com
FAIRFAX – (WMAL) The first week of numbers are in, and the Virginia Department of Transportation said things are going exactly as planned on Interstate 66 inside the Beltway.
Carpools are up, travel times are down, and average toll prices aren’t nearly as eye-popping as some of the headlines would suggest, VDOT’s Michelle Holland told WMAL.
“We looked at our data from last year at this time, and it would take drivers about 15-30 minutes to travel from one end of the corridor to the other, and we found last week that travel times can be completed in that distance in 10-12 minutes,” she said.
Most encouraging, Holland said, was a steadily rising number of carpooling vehicles, which can travel the lanes for free. 38 percent of cars passing through were carpools on Monday, rising to 45 percent on Wednesday and 43 percent on Thursday.
While toll prices north of $30 caught the attention of many, including lawmakers demanding the tolls either be capped or suspended, data shows average tolls were lower – $10.25 in the morning, and $4.03 in the afternoon, making the average round trip cost $14.28. Holland attributed the lower afternoon costs to a more spread-out commute and the lack of a backup-inducing merge, as is the case in headed eastbound in the morning when I-66, off-ramps from the Beltway, and the Dulles Toll Road all come together in a two-mile stretch.
According to VDOT data, only a few dozen drivers actually paid the highest toll amount each day. 39 drivers paid $34.50 on Monday morning, while 28 shelled out $40 on Tuesday. Toll prices are programmed to change every six minutes, responding to current traffic conditions.
Many also feared surface roads like Arlington Boulevard and Lee Highway would get jammed with drivers looking to avoid the toll. VDOT monitored those roads as well, and Holland said those fears were not realized.
“The travel times at these particular arterial roads have been very similar to what they have been in the past,” she said. “On some, we’ve actually seen some improvement.”
Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: VDOT)
