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>Here’s how it works: From 5:30 to 9:30 a.m. eastbound and from 3 to 7 p.m. westbound, Monday through Friday, tolls will fluctuate to maintain a minimum average

>Here’s how it works: From 5:30 to 9:30 a.m. eastbound and from 3 to 7 p.m. westbound, Monday through Friday, tolls will fluctuate to maintain a minimum average speed of 45 mph; there is no cap on tolls. Put simply, as traffic increases the toll rises to help manage the vehicles entering the roadway. The tolls change every six minutes. Seems similar to the "surge pricing" that Uber uses. This actually sounds like a pretty good system for addressing insufficient supply (capacity of the express lanes) -- what's the point of using an express lane if it doesn't actually move traffic along more quickly? I don't doubt that it's unfortunate to get stuck with a high bill, but that seems like something that will shake out quickly as awareness of how the system works increases.

sbjustin 9y ago
You may not be from the area but I used to live there and moved about 3 years ago. The bigger issue is that these people have paid taxes for years to pay for these roads which already exist and are now being told they can't use the road without paying 10x more money. A road they paid for in the first place. This isn't a toll road built which was funded privately and is trying to make a profit.
- kijeda 9y ago
  Wasn't it HOV only prior to this? Isn't it adding a new capability for single drivers to use it that didn't exist before?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Pretty much. Most of the complainers seem to be missing this fact. There is a wrinkle, though. They slightly expanded the HOV hours at the same time they added the tolls. So there are some small windows where you could have (legally) driven solo previously and would now have to pay.
  - sbjustin 9y ago
    It wasn't always HOV only. It became one lane HOV, then all lanes at certain hours and now the fees are through the roof.
    - pwg 9y ago
      Which location? Inside the beltway it was always HOV on all lanes during the restricted hours from the moment it (inside the beltway) opened. That was part of the "deal" made between VA, Arlington (the VA county with the majority of the "inside the beltway" portion), and DOT to even get the road finally built. The "single lane HOV" part was outside the beltway.
    - 5555624 9y ago
      Inside the Beltway was always HOV-only during rush hour. It was originally HOV-3; but, was reduced to HOV-2. If the goal was to decrease the number of cars and increase car-pooling, they could have gone back to HOV-3.
- djtriptych 9y ago
  I think it actually is a for-profit toll road further west on the same road. We used to call it the Greenway IIRC.
  - sbjustin 9y ago
    Greenway is past dulles. Not 66 inside the beltway. You're thinking of the extension on the dulles roll road just past dulles which runs to Leesburg.
- apendleton 9y ago
  I don't think any of those things are true. The lanes were HOV-only before, and HOV users can still use them just as they always have. Only the newly allowed single-occupant users have to pay. And it is funding new construction (widening of I-66). (and I do live in the area, FWIW)
  - sbjustin 9y ago
    I grew up with the sound barrier for 66 in my back yard and lived in the area for 30 years. It was absolutely completely open and then a single lane HOV and then HOV at certain hours in certain directions and now the express lane toll.
    - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
      Things change over the course of decades...just because you paid taxes for "this road" 30 years ago doesn't mean you should always get unrestricted use of it. And thinking of it as "this road" doesn't make sense, either. Roads have to be maintained. I suspect that over the course of 100 years, more is spent on road maintenance than the initial construction cost.
      - macintux 9y ago
        Road of Theseus.
    - apendleton 9y ago
      Sure, at one point it was, but this plan didn't skip straight from completely open to express lane tolls. Twice as many people live here now as 30 years ago, and this road no longer has the capacity to support that kind of totally unrestricted use. Traffic in the area had become a problem, and the only real remedies are to incentivize less driving, incentivize more efficient driving (more occupants per vehicle), or build more road capacity (and find a way to pay for it, since existing revenues don't). At least to some degree this plan does all of those: preserves existing incentives to share vehicles by keeping HOV free and maintaining reasonable traffic speeds in HOV lanes, creates new disincentives to drive single-occupant in the form of high tolls, and funds a roadway expansion.
- 8ytecoder 9y ago
  "Motorcycles and vehicles carrying two or more people have free use of the lanes." So only those who are driving solo are being charged. That seems fair to me. People who are taking so much space for one person is unfair. This is a great way to encourage them to carpool or take public transit.
- francisofascii 9y ago
  Once a road is built, it still costs money to maintain it. That is an issue for states that have large areas of roadway, yet have dwindling population.
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  Paying taxes doesn't guarantee unlimited free use of a resource. You pay taxes that help national and state parks, but you still get charged to enter or to park your car. Americans get so upset about this because they've come to believe that free road usage and free parking are fundamental rights. They're not. Tolling on congested roads -- and for that matter, for parking in dense areas -- is good policy.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    > Americans get so upset about this because they've come to believe that free road usage and free parking are fundamental rights. They're not. This is such an odd portrayal of Americans. Americans (compared to the rest of the world) are routinely lambasted for being too concerned about the cost of government-provided services and infrastructure compared to the rest of the developed world. Besides, Americans grow up learning, "Driving is a privilege; not a right". I'm guessing you're basing your generalization on a handful of out-of-touch Americans.
    - TulliusCicero 9y ago
      Oh, wish that it were so, friend. But I'm American, and have lived in the bay area, Seattle, Utah, NYC, and Alabama. And it's completely accurate. Americans think driving is a privilege? Please, then why are judges so reluctant to take away licenses from people for reckless driving or DUIs compared to other developed countries? As a transportation and land use nerd, I've seen over and over again how people in the states react to parking being reduced: with fury. Especially when it's "their" parking (read: public parking that they've become used to). Take away a parking lane to make room for buses or bikes in a growing major city? WAR ON CARS!!
      - weberc2 9y ago
        > Oh, wish that it were so, friend. But I'm American, and have lived in the bay area, Seattle, Utah, NYC, and Alabama. I'm an American too :). "Driving is a privilege" is covered on the first day of every driver's education course. > Please, then why are judges so reluctant to take away licenses from people for reckless driving or DUIs compared to other developed countries? Because the United States has comparably poor public transit infrastructure and the vast majority depend on driving for their basic livelihood. > As a transportation and land use nerd, I've seen over and over again how people in the states react to parking being reduced: with fury. Especially when it's "their" parking (read: public parking that they've become used to). Take away a parking lane to make room for buses or bikes in a growing major city? WAR ON CARS!! I've lived all over the U.S. and Europe and people definitely crab about inconveniences of all kinds. Americans are more attached to cars (and largely for good reason--there aren't better options in most places). I've never heard "war on cars".
kevan 9y ago
Minneapolis has a similar system for demand-based pricing on some of our HOV lanes. It usually works pretty well, but the max price is $8 so the model breaks down a bit during extreme traffic conditions.
- mikeash 9y ago
  When they first brought these things to the DC area (the 495 express lanes in Virginia), the toll was capped at $10. It didn't take long before they were routinely hitting the cap and seeing traffic at a standstill in the "express" lanes, so they ditched it.
  - dgritsko 9y ago
    It would be fascinating to see a graph of historical price information for the 495 express lane tolls, even over just the last few days/weeks. A cursory examination of Google results didn't yield anything unfortunately. Maybe a fun weekend project?
    - mikeash 9y ago
      It looks like the data is available for scraping: https://www.expresslanes.com/historic-rates https://www.expresslanes.com/historic-rates You "just" have to pull it all in and present it nicely.
      - nealmcb2 9y ago
        That expresslanes URL is for I-495. The I-66 historical data is here: https://vai66tolls.com/ https://vai66tolls.com/ And I too would love to see that data in a more convenient form, via an API, etc.
  - l1ambda 9y ago
    Since the whole point is to reduce congestion, implementing a cap (price ceiling) is absurd. When a price ceiling is set, a shortage occurs. In the case of road usage pricing, a shortage means a shortage of capacity. In other words, you end up with traffic congestion and tolls, the worst of both worlds. I read a similar thing about Houston where it's capped at $8 and has little effect on reducing congestion. The first course of action should be to remove the price cap. (And expand the number of paid lanes, which would decrease the cost paid by drivers by spreading it out over more lanes.) You can't have your cake and expect it to eat it too by imposing usage pricing with price caps. Economics 101: price ceilings cause shortages.
jbob2000 9y ago
The difference is that Uber doesn't need a whole bunch of infrastructure to run the surge pricing program; they already have an app, surge is just another algorithm. But toll lanes need infrastructure that needs to be constantly maintained. Your toll is paying for the times that the toll is not active. And now that the toll gates and whatnot are all setup, it will be much easier for a politician to expand their usage after a few years. Aside from all that, we have a similar setup in Ontario, Canada. One of our major highways has a "hot" lane, which can be used for cars with 2+ people or by cars with a special sticker you pay monthly for. The problem is, all of the traffic we experience is around the interchanges and off ramps. All of the lanes move very well until you hit an interchange, where there is a flurry of lane changes and everything grinds to a halt. So you'll shave 5 minutes off your commute using the Hot lane, only to waste it all at the interchanges. Then, when you want to get off the highway, you have to sit in a line at the off ramp, and a line at the next few stop lights right after. Toll lanes are just such a huge farce. It would be much more effective to tax companies that require in-office staff. You want people to drive to work just to sit at a desk and use a computer? Pay up. Use corporate tax to change the commute behaviour.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  This isn’t Canada. Your tolls are used to make the operator and the people who operate EZPass a bunch of cash.

sbjustin 9y ago

You may not be from the area but I used to live there and moved about 3 years ago. The bigger issue is that these people have paid taxes for years to pay for these roads which already exist and are now being told they can't use the road without paying 10x more money. A road they paid for in the first place. This isn't a toll road built which was funded privately and is trying to make a profit.

kijeda 9y ago
Wasn't it HOV only prior to this? Isn't it adding a new capability for single drivers to use it that didn't exist before?
- mikeash 9y ago
  Pretty much. Most of the complainers seem to be missing this fact. There is a wrinkle, though. They slightly expanded the HOV hours at the same time they added the tolls. So there are some small windows where you could have (legally) driven solo previously and would now have to pay.
- sbjustin 9y ago
  It wasn't always HOV only. It became one lane HOV, then all lanes at certain hours and now the fees are through the roof.
  - pwg 9y ago
    Which location? Inside the beltway it was always HOV on all lanes during the restricted hours from the moment it (inside the beltway) opened. That was part of the "deal" made between VA, Arlington (the VA county with the majority of the "inside the beltway" portion), and DOT to even get the road finally built. The "single lane HOV" part was outside the beltway.
  - 5555624 9y ago
    Inside the Beltway was always HOV-only during rush hour. It was originally HOV-3; but, was reduced to HOV-2. If the goal was to decrease the number of cars and increase car-pooling, they could have gone back to HOV-3.
djtriptych 9y ago
I think it actually is a for-profit toll road further west on the same road. We used to call it the Greenway IIRC.
- sbjustin 9y ago
  Greenway is past dulles. Not 66 inside the beltway. You're thinking of the extension on the dulles roll road just past dulles which runs to Leesburg.
apendleton 9y ago
I don't think any of those things are true. The lanes were HOV-only before, and HOV users can still use them just as they always have. Only the newly allowed single-occupant users have to pay. And it is funding new construction (widening of I-66). (and I do live in the area, FWIW)
- sbjustin 9y ago
  I grew up with the sound barrier for 66 in my back yard and lived in the area for 30 years. It was absolutely completely open and then a single lane HOV and then HOV at certain hours in certain directions and now the express lane toll.
  - ryanwaggoner 9y ago
    Things change over the course of decades...just because you paid taxes for "this road" 30 years ago doesn't mean you should always get unrestricted use of it. And thinking of it as "this road" doesn't make sense, either. Roads have to be maintained. I suspect that over the course of 100 years, more is spent on road maintenance than the initial construction cost.
    - macintux 9y ago
      Road of Theseus.
  - apendleton 9y ago
    Sure, at one point it was, but this plan didn't skip straight from completely open to express lane tolls. Twice as many people live here now as 30 years ago, and this road no longer has the capacity to support that kind of totally unrestricted use. Traffic in the area had become a problem, and the only real remedies are to incentivize less driving, incentivize more efficient driving (more occupants per vehicle), or build more road capacity (and find a way to pay for it, since existing revenues don't). At least to some degree this plan does all of those: preserves existing incentives to share vehicles by keeping HOV free and maintaining reasonable traffic speeds in HOV lanes, creates new disincentives to drive single-occupant in the form of high tolls, and funds a roadway expansion.
8ytecoder 9y ago
"Motorcycles and vehicles carrying two or more people have free use of the lanes." So only those who are driving solo are being charged. That seems fair to me. People who are taking so much space for one person is unfair. This is a great way to encourage them to carpool or take public transit.
francisofascii 9y ago
Once a road is built, it still costs money to maintain it. That is an issue for states that have large areas of roadway, yet have dwindling population.
TulliusCicero 9y ago
Paying taxes doesn't guarantee unlimited free use of a resource. You pay taxes that help national and state parks, but you still get charged to enter or to park your car. Americans get so upset about this because they've come to believe that free road usage and free parking are fundamental rights. They're not. Tolling on congested roads -- and for that matter, for parking in dense areas -- is good policy.
- weberc2 9y ago
  > Americans get so upset about this because they've come to believe that free road usage and free parking are fundamental rights. They're not. This is such an odd portrayal of Americans. Americans (compared to the rest of the world) are routinely lambasted for being too concerned about the cost of government-provided services and infrastructure compared to the rest of the developed world. Besides, Americans grow up learning, "Driving is a privilege; not a right". I'm guessing you're basing your generalization on a handful of out-of-touch Americans.
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    Oh, wish that it were so, friend. But I'm American, and have lived in the bay area, Seattle, Utah, NYC, and Alabama. And it's completely accurate. Americans think driving is a privilege? Please, then why are judges so reluctant to take away licenses from people for reckless driving or DUIs compared to other developed countries? As a transportation and land use nerd, I've seen over and over again how people in the states react to parking being reduced: with fury. Especially when it's "their" parking (read: public parking that they've become used to). Take away a parking lane to make room for buses or bikes in a growing major city? WAR ON CARS!!
    - weberc2 9y ago
      > Oh, wish that it were so, friend. But I'm American, and have lived in the bay area, Seattle, Utah, NYC, and Alabama. I'm an American too :). "Driving is a privilege" is covered on the first day of every driver's education course. > Please, then why are judges so reluctant to take away licenses from people for reckless driving or DUIs compared to other developed countries? Because the United States has comparably poor public transit infrastructure and the vast majority depend on driving for their basic livelihood. > As a transportation and land use nerd, I've seen over and over again how people in the states react to parking being reduced: with fury. Especially when it's "their" parking (read: public parking that they've become used to). Take away a parking lane to make room for buses or bikes in a growing major city? WAR ON CARS!! I've lived all over the U.S. and Europe and people definitely crab about inconveniences of all kinds. Americans are more attached to cars (and largely for good reason--there aren't better options in most places). I've never heard "war on cars".

kevan 9y ago

Minneapolis has a similar system for demand-based pricing on some of our HOV lanes. It usually works pretty well, but the max price is $8 so the model breaks down a bit during extreme traffic conditions.

mikeash 9y ago
When they first brought these things to the DC area (the 495 express lanes in Virginia), the toll was capped at $10. It didn't take long before they were routinely hitting the cap and seeing traffic at a standstill in the "express" lanes, so they ditched it.
- dgritsko 9y ago
  It would be fascinating to see a graph of historical price information for the 495 express lane tolls, even over just the last few days/weeks. A cursory examination of Google results didn't yield anything unfortunately. Maybe a fun weekend project?
  - mikeash 9y ago
    It looks like the data is available for scraping: https://www.expresslanes.com/historic-rates https://www.expresslanes.com/historic-rates You "just" have to pull it all in and present it nicely.
    - nealmcb2 9y ago
      That expresslanes URL is for I-495. The I-66 historical data is here: https://vai66tolls.com/ https://vai66tolls.com/ And I too would love to see that data in a more convenient form, via an API, etc.
- l1ambda 9y ago
  Since the whole point is to reduce congestion, implementing a cap (price ceiling) is absurd. When a price ceiling is set, a shortage occurs. In the case of road usage pricing, a shortage means a shortage of capacity. In other words, you end up with traffic congestion and tolls, the worst of both worlds. I read a similar thing about Houston where it's capped at $8 and has little effect on reducing congestion. The first course of action should be to remove the price cap. (And expand the number of paid lanes, which would decrease the cost paid by drivers by spreading it out over more lanes.) You can't have your cake and expect it to eat it too by imposing usage pricing with price caps. Economics 101: price ceilings cause shortages.

jbob2000 9y ago

The difference is that Uber doesn't need a whole bunch of infrastructure to run the surge pricing program; they already have an app, surge is just another algorithm. But toll lanes need infrastructure that needs to be constantly maintained. Your toll is paying for the times that the toll is not active. And now that the toll gates and whatnot are all setup, it will be much easier for a politician to expand their usage after a few years. Aside from all that, we have a similar setup in Ontario, Canada. One of our major highways has a "hot" lane, which can be used for cars with 2+ people or by cars with a special sticker you pay monthly for. The problem is, all of the traffic we experience is around the interchanges and off ramps. All of the lanes move very well until you hit an interchange, where there is a flurry of lane changes and everything grinds to a halt. So you'll shave 5 minutes off your commute using the Hot lane, only to waste it all at the interchanges. Then, when you want to get off the highway, you have to sit in a line at the off ramp, and a line at the next few stop lights right after. Toll lanes are just such a huge farce. It would be much more effective to tax companies that require in-office staff. You want people to drive to work just to sit at a desk and use a computer? Pay up. Use corporate tax to change the commute behaviour.

Spooky23 9y ago
This isn’t Canada. Your tolls are used to make the operator and the people who operate EZPass a bunch of cash.