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Advisers recommend that transportation commissioner choose Fluor/Transurban proposal for I-95/395 toll project Date published: 11/2/2005
By EDIE GROSS SPRINGFIELD--HOT lanes will extend from Washington to Massaponax if Virginia follows last night's recommendation from a panel of transportation officials. The advisory panel, which has been reviewing two HOT lanes proposals since April, voted 10-3 to support a plan by Fluor Virginia and Transurban USA to create a 56-mile High-Occupancy Toll lane facility from the 14th Street Bridge outside Washington to Interstate 95's Exit 126 in Spotsylvania County. Panelist Barbara Reese, the Virginia Department of Transportation's chief financial officer, was absent, but she sent a letter indicating that she, too, supported Fluor's plan. Members of the panel said choosing one HOT lanes proposal over the other was difficult since both plans were so comprehensive. "It would've been so easy if one of these proposers had come in here slipping and tripping with shoddy work," said Robert Sevila, a member of the panel as well as the Commonwealth Transportation Board. "It would've given us an easy out, but there wasn't an easy out." In the end, those who supported Fluor said they did so because they felt the firm better integrated public transit into the entire project, provided more access to Northern Virginia hot spots and linked up well to a similar HOT-lanes project on the Capital Beltway, which Fluor is also handling. The Fluor/Transurban team also offered to invest between $135 million and $270 million of its own money in the project, a risk that impressed the panel. "We're delighted to have been successful," said Michael Kulper, Transurban's executive in charge of North American operations. "Virginia's done everything it can to encourage proposers to take risks, and we did that." The 14-member panel's recommendation will be forwarded to interim Transportation Commissioner Gregory A. Whirley, who could decide by January whether it's worth pursuing. Both HOT-lanes proposals--one by Fluor/Transurban and the other by Clark Construction and Shirley Contracting Co.--would convert the existing High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes, or HOV lanes, into toll lanes. Motorists with three people in their car would still be allowed to use the lanes for free, but cars with fewer passengers could access the HOT lanes for a fee.
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