LA FREEWAY EXPRESS LANES FREE
There are other alternatives, including adding two free lanes that would do as much to cut down general travel time. It needs to make sure that money stays within the corridor and that tax dollars are not paying for exclusive lanes. The Orange County Transportation Authority board needs to tackle these problems head-on before embarking on this expansion. So, the folks who have to deal with these new exclusive lanes day in and day out could lose out on the promised pot of cash. It could go to far-flung communities and be doled out to unrelated projects. It’s not even clear that, if revenue from these toll lanes did begin to roll in, it would be spent on this stretch of the 405. That consideration only legitimizes the claims that toll lanes are more about raising revenues for local government than about improving traffic flow. In other words, the toll lanes won’t bring in much revenue unless smaller car pools are out. Upping the car-pool requirement to three would bring in $163 million.
LA FREEWAY EXPRESS LANES FOR FREE
Why? Because transportation officials estimate that allowing car pools with two people in the car into those toll lanes for free over five years would limit the profitability of the paid lanes. Right now, vehicles with two or more people can drive in the high-occupancy vehicle lanes.īut if a toll lane were added, they would likely be kicked out. Moreover, current car-pool lanes could be lost. In Los Angeles County, for example, toll lanes opened on the 110 Freeway and Interstate 10 in the past year, and if traffic has been reduced on those roads, it has happened in such small increments that it is hardly noticed. As part of its preparations for the 2028 Olympics, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates bus and rail transit and provides funding and planning for freeway projects, is studying congestion pricing to manage travel demand in its ExpressLanes-one or two high-occupancy-vehicle (HOV) lanes adjacent to four or five free lanes in each direction.Although details of how the paid lanes would function have yet to be worked out, cities along the corridor have voiced strong opposition, with good reason.Īt the most basic level the biggest qualm is the very idea of building costly and exclusive toll lanes that have yet to prove they significantly ease congestion in Southern California. Los Angeles could be next, and it may soon provide a window into how the model could work for other car-reliant cities.
LA FREEWAY EXPRESS LANES DRIVERS
London, Singapore, Stockholm and other cities charge tolls for drivers on important roads at peak hours to manage traffic, and many more cities, including New York and San Francisco, are poised to follow these leaders. Congestion pricing can maintain free-flowing traffic on freeways even during peak hours.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns that have kept millions of people at home, drivers in Los Angeles and other big cities experienced something miraculous: free-flowing freeway traffic, at all hours. But if a lingering fear of coronavirus contagion keeps former transit riders off buses and trains after the pandemic passes, traffic congestion may end up even worse than before the pandemic.
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