Virginia opened 29 miles of high-occupancy toll lanes to business on December 29 of 2014. What lessons are drivers and policy makers taking from the ongoing test of the concept?
Washington Post columnist Robert Thomson examines the theory behind high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, especially as recently scaled-up to a new degree by 29 miles of HOT lanes of interstates 95 and 395 in Virginia.
"It’s too soon to know whether the lanes will achieve the lofty goals for traffic relief set by their proponents," writes Thomson. "But the concerns raised by early adapters to life in the HOT lanes provide some indication of what happens when paper theory meets pavement."
The article also sets the context of the national conversation about transportation funding and the state of Virginia's potential expansion of HOT lanes to Interstate 66. To address those possibilities with the I-95 and I-395 HOT lanes as a case study, Thomson goes on to examine "five of the top issues drivers are raising about the new I-95 HOT lanes."
Those five issues are summed up here, with lots more details in the article:
- The transition zone.
- Knowing the toll.
- Are they ever free?
- Is it worth it?
- Are carpoolers protected?
Read the full story: Virginia’s HOT lanes could be the future of U.S. transportation
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