Va. HOT Lane Project to Start Early Next Year
For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past year, HOT means "High-Occupancy Toll," a sort of spin-off of HOV, aka "High-Occupancy Vehicle." Instead of have 2-3 people per car in order to use these special lanes (which usually equate to faster travel as it seems 95% of DCers travel alone), people pay a toll to use dedicated lanes for express travel.
Having seen the gridlock that ensues on the Beltway around Tysons (and thankfully, I haven't had to sit in it), the idea seems like a good one, since cars will be a little more spread out as each car that goes into the HOT lane means one less on the regular 4-lane highway. I doubt it'll make a huge difference in the traffic flow among the normal lanes, but any sort of effort should be considered a good one. In addition, HOV-3 vehicles travel free along with buses (which actually haven't had routes along the Beltway in a long time due to the incredible traffic).
However, this quote worries me:
State officials said that all Beltway lanes will be kept open through rush hours and that road closures will happen only at night and on weekends. But they conceded that drivers will face delays… the Beltway project will profoundly affect traffic into the retail and office destination of Tysons Corner.
This means that traffic may be pushed over onto Routes 123 and 7, aka the only way to get in and out of Tysons, aka major parts of my commute to work and the barn. :twitch: To give you an idea of what's expected in terms of travel, another article from the Post is titled Five-Year Forecast: Get Ready, Set . . . Sit.
Some critics who initially scorned HOT lanes as "Lexus lanes," saying that they favor the wealthy, have come around based on studies showing they are used in other states by people of all income levels.
Funny, I'd say we already have "Lexus Lanes" in place on 66 and the 95s - they're called HOV lanes, and the price of admission is (1) Hybrid car. For the rest of us who aren't so lucky, guess it's time to invest in an XM Radio subscription for having to wait.
On a more serious note, since bus routes along the beltway may be reopened, I'd rather spend my money on that (and also get one less car off the road) than the estimated $5-$6 to use the lanes. It's bad enough the Greenway is owned by the Mafia and has consistently ripped off the public ever since it was built by charging a flat rate of $3+ one-way… let's hope people don't get too focused on the HOT lanes and forget about the Greenway's plans to hike the rate in the coming years.
