05/16/2007

By SARAH KARUSH  / Associated Press

A project to expand carpool lanes in northern Virginia and allow solo drivers to use them for a fee cleared its latest hurdle Wednesday when a regional transportation board approved the project.

The converted lanes on Interstates 95 and 395 will still be free to vehicles with three or more people. But vehicles with one or two occupants will also be able to use the lanes if they pay a toll. The price of the high-occupancy/toll lanes, or HOT lanes, will vary based on the degree of congestion.

The project also calls for adding another lane, bringing the total number of HOT lanes to three.

The National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board voted 23-4 with one abstention to include the project in the region's transportation plan. The vote came despite the fears of some commuters that the new lanes will disrupt the successful system of informal carpooling, known as slugging, that has sprouted up on that section of I-95 and I-395.

Proponents of the HOT lanes, being built under a public-private partnership, say harnessing market forces is the best way to improve traffic flow on one of the region's most congested routes.

HOT lanes have been hailed as a success in California and other states and are championed by the Bush administration. Transportation experts say they can reduce congestion more than traditional high-occupancy vehicle lanes, which are often underused because too few people carpool.

But opponents say the HOV lanes that extend from Virginia's border with the District of Columbia to Prince William County are already successful and that tinkering with them will hurt carpoolers.

In the slugging system, strangers traveling the same route meet at park-and-ride lots or other designated spots to form one-time carpools.

Some worry that, under the new system, paying drivers will clog up the fast lanes or that the road's operator will eventually demand a toll from HOV drivers as well.

Prince William County Supervisor Michael C. May, who represents the county on the transportation planning board, voted against the project. He said slugging is, in effect, "Prince William County's mass transit system."

"Fundamentally, I think we're taking a system that works very well for our commuters and putting that at risk," May said.

The project still needs to go through a federal environmental review before the state signs a final agreement with its private partners.

The private consortium behind the project is made up of Transurban Group and Fluor Corp. Those two companies are also building HOT lanes on Virginia's portion of the Capital Beltway.

Not all the "no" votes Wednesday were aimed at the HOT lanes project. Several other projects were included in the same agenda item. One of them would extend and connect some acceleration and deceleration lanes on Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway. That project has elicited objections from critics in Arlington County who fear it is a prelude to adding a third lane.

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Virginia HOT Lanes: http://www.virginiahotlanes.com/