"Toll traffic managed lanes can carry twice as many vehicles as regular lanes"

How does this make sense? I thought a lane had a fixed capacity for vehicles. It's not like the drivers will be closer together now that they're paying for the priviledge.

Raising revenue for increased public transportation is a great idea. Private ownership of toll lanes in exchange for contributions toward mass transit should be implemented where ever possible. Environmental Defense deserves credit for supporting this.

OTOH, many environmental groups have worked tirelessly to oppose any new construction of highways and lanes. I think that in their hearts, they would like to punish people who choose to live further from their job and must commute to get there by forcing them to sit in massive traffic jams.

But many, many people cannot afford housing closer to where they work. The daily commute is tearing their family life apart and the added stress is effecting their physical and mental health. The effects on our society must be weighed against the conservation of land they advocate. At some point, the health and well being of people will outweigh the benefit of a small section of woodlands that only a handful of people get to enjoy.

How many people who have already moved to the suburbs have suddenly become "environmentalists" a a way to keep other people from coming out to join them? They move to an outlying community and suddenly, they own the whole place. "Don't build roads by my house" is the area's version of NIMBY.

"Toll traffic managed lanes can carry twice as many vehicles as regular lanes,"
Does anybody understand this??? If yes, please explain. It makes no sense to me.

"We should upgrade existing lanes to toll managed lanes rather than just widening roads and creating future highways. If it's only new lanes and only new roads it tends to exacerbate the problems."

Well, I'd like to see them turn one of the already super-duper saturated beltway lanes into a toll lane. The result: fewer people would be able to use one lane (unless someone can successfully explain the authors claim that limiting access to the lane would increase the amount of vehicles it can hold), forcing the other already oversaturated lanes to handle the displaced vehicles. This cannot be effective, there is simply no place for these displaced people to go. Plus, there's a limit to how much money people can pay for the privilege of driving faster. If the rates go up high enough, most people will be forced to sit in traffic, unable to afford the toll lanes (if budget was not an issue for most commuters, they could afford to live closer to their work).

It appears to me the goal of this statement was to make general non-toll traffic worse, or driving so expensive, that people choose to use public transportation or carpools. I'm not saying that I'm against carpooling or public transportation- people should use them whenever they can. I'm just saying the logic in the article makes absolutely no sense.

If you think people won't pay more to ride in a lane on the Beltway designed to get them to their destination faster (they pay to play) dream on -- look around you, hybrids with single drivers are taking over HOV lanes. Our area is rich with people who are, well, rich and can afford some pretty hefty tolls to accommodate their schedules. In many cases, I'm sure their companies will gladly pay their tolls to get them to work at a decent time.

I imagine the ED person is implying that these toll lanes will move faster, thus accommodate more load than the other Beltway lanes.

Let's make a real difference. A minimum speed limit of 65 mph and a maximum of say 95 in the HOT lanes. Let's move cars, not just make a profit on throttling down folks. Let's make a difference.

Several bloggers questioned how toll lanes carry more traffic than free lanes. The Environmental Defense report (see http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/5257_TollingReport0506.pdf page 18-19) discusses this in some detail, citing Federal Highway Administration studies that show toll managed lanes carry almost twice as many vehicles per hour at three times the speed of parallel free lanes during time of peak congestion. When the free lanes become stop-and-go, their throughput falls to under 900 vehicles per hour per lane, at less than 20 mph. The toll managed lanes continue to carry over 1600 vehicles per hour per lane at 60+ mph. Effective toll managed lanes also support many more buses, vanpools, and carpools, so the number of persons per lane is multiplied even higher. If we marry this traffic engineering science with effective market pricing and expanded travel choices, everyone can win.

Let's ask public officials to deliver a high performance transportation system, rather than pretending they are solving the problem by trying and failing to build their way out of congestion. How about performance guarantees for less congestion while protecting the environment and improving access of low and moderate income people to jobs and public facilities? Let the contractors be paid only if they deliver. Let the motorist pay tolls only if they get congestion relief.

I agree with this, but only on a limitted number of roadways. Specifically, on roadways where ample, HIGH QUALITY, efficient mass transit is availble. Note the emphasis on high quality here... there are some great essays by Weyrich explaining why buses are never high quality, and I couldn't agree more. Due to the affordable housing crisis in the DC metro area, I think a "pay to avoid traffic" program is completely unethical in places where commuters have no other option. Especially since many of those commuters have moved to the 'burbs for reasons well out of their control (rising prices in DC and the inner burbs, crappy school system in the district, etc...). I find the plans that actually eliminate free lanes in exchange for a pay as you go lane particularly unethical in this sort of situation - by eliminating one or more formerly free lanes the potential is put in place to actually INCREASE the traffic in those lanes. So now, if you can't afford to pay your way out of traffic, not only must you sit in the same traffic you did yesterday, but you might actually have to sit in more if enough people refuse to pay! In places where equally efficient mass transit is available, I am OK with these ideas... the problem is, you don't necessarily know where everyone is coming from. While the green/blue lines might be a great option for someone working in NoVa, but living in PG b/c they can't afford to live in NoVa - maybe they live 4 miles from the green line, b/c real estate costs too much within walking distance to a metro? Now they have to spend half an hour or more on an unreliable bus, PLUS the time on the metro.... they no longer have high quality service available, and a toll for them to use the traffic-free portion of the beltway is completely unethical if their other option is to sit in potentially MORE traffic than they woudl have if that pay-to-drve lane had never taken over 1/4 of the taxpayer funded roadway!

It is very regretable that our society has regressed into a sprawling, suburban, place where a car is a necessity. But, unfortunately, 50 years of oil industry power and control over our government have created a place completely different from any other country in the world. It is regretable that many times, a family with 2 children trying to get by on a below median income has two options a) move to the suburbs and drive OR b) stay in the city, send your kids to a crappy public school, and doom them to perpetuating the cycle of remaining in the same income bracket as their parents. But unfortunately, these are all realities of our society. Our government SHOULD have looked ahead 30 years ago, they SHOULD have invested in mass transit infastructure, counties SHOULD have included rights-of-way for 10 times the rail infastructure as there currently is in their master plans. But none of this happened... and now we face a doomful reality. Unfortunately, the proposed solutions all seem to take direct aim at the most vulnerable of our society.

In summary, until we use our votes to force our elected reps to act in the intrerest of the MAJORITY of the population, rather than the few elite, there will be no good solution to this problem.

So let me get this straight: the enviros like tolls on existing roads, but call them expensive and unfair on new roads like the ICC. I guess they'll say anything to help turn the public against the ICC, even if it runs contrary to their own position. Enviro groups' real position, per their literature, is that tolls are great because they raise the cost of driving, limit induced travel and generate revenue. I'm only surprised that Replogle is bold enough to make this point while his anti-ICC buddies are saying how bad tolls are.

Realize that environmentalists like Replogle do not care about anyone who drives, period (except maybe themselves on their way to work). Their Plan A is to let congestion get so bad that no more people can drive. I guess Plan B is to make driving so expensive that few can drive. Actually I like congestion pricing. Aside from the obvious flow benefits, variable tolls can cover much of road construction costs. Good luck getting transit to fund itself -- it's not popular or convenient enough.

funny ringtones

From what I understand Toll lanes only help 1 lane go faster... The rest of us end up waiting wondering if we should have paid the money to zip along... capitalist, yes, fair, no.