About 30 miles of toll lanes (called Express Lanes in the parlance of toll lane politics) on I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties have been open for month.
Motorists took about 471,550 trips in the first month of operation on the Northwest Corridor Express Lanes in the Atlanta region, reports David Wickert. The math figures out to more than 20,000 trips on an average weekday.
"That’s a fraction of the nearly 300,000 vehicles that travel I-75 near the Perimeter on an average day. But it’s enough that many commuters say traffic on one of metro Atlanta’s busiest highways has improved, even in the regular lanes," according to Wickert. While no official survey or scientific study is cited to back up that claim, Wickert does talk to one motorist who says the lanes have been a 'miracle' for his commute. There's also state traffic data showing the difference in traffic speeds between the toll lanes and the regular lanes. "On Oct. 5, for example, afternoon traffic averaged 65.4 mph in the express lanes, compared to 36.6 mph in the regular lanes."
The article includes more details about how the express lanes function (i.e., dynamic tolling) and the politics of express lanes after a month of operation in the region.
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