Free Republic

Starting next week, billboards, social media, television and print media will carry messages urging thousands of Valley motorists, including those in the West Valley, to prepare for four years of disruptions in their driving routines. It’s not exactly Armageddon that the Arizona Department of Transportation will be heralding, but it certainly won’t be a walk in the park either, especially for car and truck traffic on I-10. West Valley motorists who need to get to the other side of the county or Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport can expect significant increases in traffic as motorists try to evade the inevitable...

SEATTLE, WA — Of the many rage-inducing behaviors you encounter out on the roads, HOV-lane cheaters are among the most infuriating. But there's a subclass of those cheaters who take the infraction one step further by putting a fake passenger in the car to make it look like they're not cheating

WASHINGTON — Extended Interstate 66 HOV hours and high morning tolls aimed at reducing the number of cars hitting a chokepoint passing the Dulles Connector Road appear to be the biggest drivers of traffic changes since tolls for solo drivers began in December.A new state review of traffic and tolling data on I-66 and parallel roads over the first six months finds more concentrated and severe eastbound traffic delays through the Rosslyn area now than in the same period last year between 8 a.m. and 9:15 a.m., but significantly reduced traffic jams on I-66 inside the Beltway elsewhere and during...

With Metro still tackling safety and operational issues, and toll rates occasionally hitting $40 or more on the Interstate 66 express lanes inside the Capital Beltway, tolerable options for commuters in Northern Virginia seem hard to come by these days. Kalai Kandasamy wants to offer an alternative. The cybersecurity and information technology consultant developed a Sluglines app in 2016 that helps prospective riders and drivers coordinate trips, and he believes that establishing slug lines in the I-66 corridor could alleviate travel headaches for some workers. “Slugging fills up those empty seats, and it’s good for the environment,” Kandasamy said. “It’s...

WASHINGTON — About two years ago, during the last big debate over Interstate 66 rush-hour tolls for solo drivers, there was a lot of talk about $17 round-trip tolls. Virginia’s transportation secretary said this week that the tolls drivers have seen inside the Beltway so far remain in line with those projections. New data the Virginia Department of Transportation provided Thursday from the first day of tolls on Monday morning show the average morning toll for drivers who paid with an E-ZPass, or who will get automated violation notices in the mail, was $10.70, while the average afternoon toll paid...

T he expansion of Virginia’s extensive system of high­-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes is shifting to Interstate 395. Construction is set to take off before the end of the year along an eight-mile stretch of Interstate 395, where today’s high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes are being converted into toll lanes. The $480 million project will deliver the next major milestone in the state’s vision to create a network of more than 90 miles of HOT lanes in Northern Virginia by 2022. About 45 miles of express lanes have opened on Interstates 495 and 95 within the past five years, and the state...

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne on Wednesday discussed a plan to ease congestion in Hampton Roads — but it comes with a cost to some. In October, the Commonwealth Transportation Board voted to allow VDOT to convert eight miles of HOV lanes on I-64 into toll lanes. The conversion to high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes or express lanes will impact the stretch of I-64 from the I-264 interchange up to Interstate 564. Solo drivers will be able to use the lanes for the first time during peak hours, but they will have to pay a...

MERCER ISLAND, Wash. - The city of Mercer Island plans to sue Sound Transit and the State Department of Transportation over I-90 access, which could freeze the East Light construction project set to begin in June. The City Council unanimously approved the legal action Monday during a packed council meeting. They plan to sue both agencies and seek a moratorium on the construction as they search for short-term solutions to their traffic concerns. In response to the authorized legal action, Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff released a statement calling the decision “highly regrettable.” “While Sound Transit remains ready to reach...

In July Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe stood on the platform of a train station in Alexandria to announce that the U.S. Department of Transportation had granted $165 million for the Atlantic Gateway project.While this is a multimodal project featuring rail, bus, and highway improvements, it was clearly the latter that most enthused the governor. At one point during his remarks, he declared that because of the road projects, “Today, the congestion is going to end!”The primary focus of the highway improvements will be an extension of the HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes on I-95 and I-395. The only other speaker...

Highway express lanes provide a faster trip for carpoolers, people who drive low-emission cars, and solo travelers who are willing to pay more.ThatÂ’s the idea, anyway.But as Americans drive more miles than ever before, express lanes are facing a challenge: they are too popular. So many drivers of all kinds are using the lanes that it is increasingly difficult for transportation officials to keep them speedy.For solo drivers, the tolls in express lanes typically vary based on demand. In some places, drivers pay more during peak travel times, and in others prices go up as more cars enter the lane....

The National Park Service and the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) have announced a new partnership to construct the nation's first bicycle High Occupancy/Toll Express Lanes on the Mount Vernon Trail between Rosslyn and Mount Vernon.

More tolls are coming to Ontario roads, Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca said Monday, with details on the province’s plans due in the next couple of months.Del Duca was talking about a report by a group of environmentally minded policy types calling themselves “the Ecofiscal Commission” that says road tolls are the only way to handle worsening congestion. Particularly, the report calls for adding tolls that would allow vehicles that would not otherwise qualify to use existing high-occupancy vehicle lanes.“Road use has traditionally been freely available to anyone with a driver’s licence, and the open-access nature of roads makes them...

TORONTO - The Ontario government has been working on plans for high occupancy toll lanes on three Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area highways since 2013, but has kept most of the details secret. When the NDP filed a Freedom of Information request in early 2014 for detailed information on the work, which includes traffic models, most of the documents were to be blacked out or not released at all, according to a report obtained by the Toronto Sun. Ministry of Transportation staff prepared the note to give senior bureaucrats and the minister’s office a heads-up about the NDP’s “contentious” request....

HOV is good; HOT is even better. As we saw during the Pan-Am Games, High Occupancy Vehicle lanes were great for cars with three or more people and other designated vehicles. The trouble was that they went largely unused. High Occupancy Toll lanes solve that problem by opening up the designated space to cars that don’t have the numbers but whose drivers are willing to pay for the convenience. Premier Kathleen Wynne has hinted that she’s willing to implement HOT lanes, but has not been specific about where and when. If the U.S. experience is anything to go by, however,...

I admit it, I drove in the car pool lane as a single driver. I got in a hurry and started playing that game of seeing what I could get away with. I drove from the Veteran's Hospital in Santa Rosa, toward San Rafael, past acres of vineyards, past sleep cows, past car lots full of vehicles and tried to save some time. All was well until some other driver peered out of her SUV to see me whizzing past, then and decided to join me in the express lane. That single driver was soon followed by another in one...

State transportation officials should study dedicated travel lanes for vans, carpools and buses on a congested seven-mile stretch of the Capital Beltway that includes the American Legion Bridge, Montgomery and Fairfax leaders urged Tuesday. HOT lanes for toll payers and high-occupancy vehicles are planned for the Beltway in Virginia from the Springfield Interchange to just north of the Dulles Toll Road, and set to open later this year. But Montgomery County Council President Roger Berliner and Fairfax Board of Supervisors Chair Sharon Bulova pointed out a seven-mile gap in dedicated high-occupancy travel lanes between the northern terminus of the planned...

ARLINGTON, Va. - There's a new turn in the debate over high occupancy toll lanes or HOT lanes. A lawsuit filed by Arlington County last month claims the lanes benefit wealthy white people and discriminates against minorities. While the only rule to get in the HOV lanes on Interstate 395 is you must have three people in the car, Arlington claims adding HOT lanes would cut out poor and minorities by defacto. That claim doesn't sit well with Fairfax County Supervisor Pat Herrity (R-Springfield). "I don't think race or class warfare has any standing in this argument," Herrity said. Buried...

ARLINGTON, Va. - There's a new turn in the debate over high occupancy toll lanes or HOT lanes. A lawsuit filed by Arlington County last month claims the lanes benefit wealthy white people and discriminates against minorities. While the only rule to get in the HOV lanes on Interstate 395 is you must have three people in the car, Arlington claims adding HOT lanes would cut out poor and minorities by defacto.

They are the "6:01ers," commuters who have found their own trick to beating the Washington area's traffic gridlock. They lie in wait in strip mall parking lots and park illegally on the side of the road near high-occupancy vehicle ramps, waiting for the clock to strike 6:01 p.m. -- when the carpool lanes on Interstate 95/395 open up to all vehicles, not just those with three or more occupants. If drivers can hit the lanes as soon as they open to all traffic, their reward is a rocket ride from the Pentagon home -- without the need to pick up...

RICHMOND (AP) — After years of planning, construction will begin next spring on the new express toll lanes on the Capital Beltway, state transportation officials said yesterday.M The public-private project will cost about $1.7 billion — nearly double the projected cost two years ago — and will be completed in 2013, the Virginia Department of Transportation said. VDOT Commissioner David S. Ekern said the agency has reached an agreement in principle with two private contractors — Transurban DRIVe and Fluor Enterprises — for design, construction, operation and maintenance of the high occupancy toll (HOT) lanes. The project is intended to...