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State agency says slugging should not be negatively affected when HOT lanes open on Interstate 95 Date published: 1/18/2008
By KELLY HANNON While toll lanes on Interstate 95 will let drivers pay their way out of traffic, commuters are mostly saying, no thanks. Instead, a majority of Northern Virginia commuters plan to keep carpooling, vanpooling and hopping a bus or train. Also, roughly four in five people who participate in slugging--82 percent--said they will continue to line up to form instant carpools after toll lanes replace High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. The group most likely to switch methods? Solo drivers. Only 53 percent of respondents said they would continue to drive alone after toll lanes open. Virginia commissioned an online survey to look at commuter behavior in the I-95 corridor in advance of the toll-lane project. The results show commuters overwhelmingly intend to stick with their current mode of travel. "They will not change their commute in any way when HOT lanes are open and functional," said Corey Hill, the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation's chief of transit and congestion management. Hill shared survey results with the Commonwealth Transportation Board in Richmond Wednesday. The online survey was conducted last summer and targeted commuters who travel northbound on I-95 on weekday mornings. A private partnership, Fluor-Transurban, intends to expand HOV lanes on I-95 to the Massaponax area by 2014. It will widen the two-lane HOV corridor to three lanes from Arlington to Dumfries. Under the proposal, vehicles with three or more occupants will continue to ride for free. But vehicles with one or two occupants can pay a toll to use the lanes. Tolls will fluctuate based on the time of day and level of traffic. The toll-lane proposal sparked fear in the slugging community, Hill said. Slugs worried that drivers would prefer to pay the toll rather than stop at commuter lots to pick up the extra two riders needed to use the lanes at rush hour, Hill said. With more than 80 percent of sluggers pledging to continue, and 81 percent of carpoolers insisting they will stick with it, there should be no reason to fear, Hill said.
Date published: 1/18/2008
Folks, you missed the entire point of this story. The point was that they did a survey and after HOT lanes people plan to continue to slug or pick up slugs, rather than do the toll. DUH. Listen, it is all a smoke screen. Of course people will continue to do the free thing if they can. The point is, that HOT will eventually JAM the HOV lanes, making all of this a MOOT POINT. Duh!
Hybrids are marked with a special sticker on the back panel of car. They get to use the lanes, period. There is no expiration or talk of kicking these cars out. By the way, all of you "Hybrid Haters", what do you think will happen to you in the regular lanes when the Hybrid cars join you? Nothing like a few more cars. Right? I guess your commute and quality of life will get better?
I've read so many of these articles about HOT lanes, but they always fail to mention anything about the thousands of hybrid owners who use the HOV lanes. I slugged for 5 years before having a very bad string of unsafe drivers convince me to buy a hybrid before the deadline in July 2006. I still pick up slugs on occasion. It would be nice to read one of these articles about HOT lanes and have them mention the affect on hybrid owners.
I am all for building a light rail infrastructure that then hands off to heavy rail at major stops but, in this country it has 0% chance of happening. When we pay our taxes, we look at, okay what do I get? So unless Virginia is willing to build light rail to small farming communities that will fight the rail coming to their area, we won't get anything. People want to know what they are going to get out of things and don't care about the big picture.
to the commuter congestion that WILL WORK effectively and economically is light weight rapid rail. However, our elected and appointed geniuses simply do not get it. Perhaps the road building lobby is just too cozy with these folks.
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