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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 do
by 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 agoWhen 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 agoIt 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 agoIt 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 agoThat 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 agoSince 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.
- cbhl 9y agoThere's a proposal for an express lane on US 101 in California, and when they hit the cap the lane will become "HOV only". I wonder if congestion will ever get so bad that they'll have to start adding tolls for HOV vehicles too.
- mikeash 9y agoInteresting system. That's effectively a sudden massive increase in price to whatever the fine is for an HOV violation. But the fact that it's a fine rather than a traditional price will change the way people think about it.