“FASTLANE” is the name of a federal grant program; it doesn’t mean that one lane of traffic will be reserved for specific users. As far as I know, all three lanes in each direction will be available to general traffic.
Though this is long overdue, the first phase really won’t do much more than provide an extra passing lane for a short distance. The second phase, linking the extra capacity up to the I-70 junction, is when the benefits of the extra lane will become apparent.
Really, the entire length of I-81 from North Carolina up through New York State needs to be widened. But at least this is a start.
Thanks. I appreciate the mention.
Out here in California during rush hour the diamond lane remains under-used while the other lanes are stopped dead in their tracks.
I’ve seen three lanes going around 25 mph, with a diamond lane with very few cars going by.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out increasing the flow by opening up that diamond lane would ease traffic significantly.
My wife and I never used the diamond lane even when together. The folks in there want to go 80 and it gets to the point it’s unsafe to drive in there even at 70.
I-81’s southern terminus is in Tennessee, not North Carolina.
I like that it says traffic won’t be impeded. I really think all road expansion should be done by doubling the capacity. Build a new road — or bridge — with the same capacity as the old one and completely apart from it. No traffic impairment at all to the existing. Then divert all traffic to the new one while doing minor upgrades to the old one. Then reopen the old one so there is double the previous capacity, all without ever causing a bottleneck.
I realize this is the way it has been done for decades, but I am hoping Trump changes things. Rather than doling out huge Federal spending to states to improve roads and bridges, I’d rather private companies were offered incentives and given permission to do the improvements and “donate” them to the states. I don’t mean construction contractors, I mean prominent businesses in the area like IBM, Amazon, etc. that normally have no connection to such projects but would like to get tax credits.
By having private companies hire contractors instead of the state doing it, we could avoid a lot of the labor requirements that unions have put in place over the decades for government projects. Laws that fleece the state by requiring workers, even if not union, be paid the highest prevailing union wage and dictate how many workers are required to do the job, supposedly in the name of safety but really just padding the payroll.
Let the state get bids and then the private business claim a tax credit equal to the lowest bid amount upon completion and donation of the project to the state. If businesses are more efficient than the state, then the business could get a larger tax credit than it actually cost them to complete the project. And for sure it would be done faster since the tax credit is only issued upon completion with no money outlays along the way, no cost overruns and no schedule slippage.