Steve Burns
WMAL.com
ALEXANDRIA — (WMAL) The Commonwealth Transportation Board is set to vote today on a long-controversial plan to add dynamic tolling to Interstate 66 inside the Beltway. The plan calls for charging solo drivers to use the highway during peak periods in peak directions, something they are barred from doing today, while still allowing HOV-2 cars to ride for free.
The Board will also vote on an agreement on where toll revenues will go. “These toll revenues would be spent on ways to help folks get out their cars,” said Robert Thomson, also known as the Washington Post’s Dr. Gridlock. “It would enhance carpooling. It would add to the commuter bus system.”
An analysis by the Virginia Department of Transportation released this week found the HOT lane proposal performs about three times better in terms of moving people than simply widening the road without adding tolls.
“We’re not talking necessarily about moving more cars. The state keeps emphasizing this,” Thomson said. “The idea is to move more people by any means possible.”
The state’s analysis has found the plan initially won’t have much impact on local roads around the highway, Thomson said. Still, any widening of I-66 inside the Beltway will be held off while the state evaluates how well the HOT lane system is working.
“There are triggers that would lead to the widening of I-66,” Thomson said. “One of those is an assessment of how traffic is flowing on 66. The other is how traffic is doing on some of the parallel routes that a lot of folks were fearing would become more congested.”
Because there is no new construction involved on the Inside the Beltway project, they expect dynamic tolling to begin as early as summer 2017.
In the state’s long-term analysis, it is assumed the highway will be widened by 2040. The state is also set to raise the cap from HOV-2 to HOV-3 in 2020, so cars with two people will need to start paying the toll while cars with three commuters inside will ride free.
Also this week, the Virginia Department of Transportation announced they will enter into a public-private partnership to finance HOT lanes on their Outside the Beltway project, similar to agreements already in place for HOT lanes on the Beltway and Interstate 95. Officials indicated they are evaluating proposals now and will choose one sometime next year. That project would add toll lanes next to the existing free lanes on the highway from the Beltway interchange to Haymarket.
“(These two projects together) are the biggest transportation programs we’ve got in the D.C. Region,” Thomson said. “There’s nothing going on right now, nothing on the drawing boards, not the extension of the Silver Line, not the Purple Line, nothing tops the Virginia HOT lanes in terms of impact.”
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