H.O.T. Toll Lanes in LA County?

[nickv]

Toll plan might leave many in jam

Adding paying drivers to carpool lanes would worsen traffic unless minimum occupancy was raised to three per vehicle, experts say.

By Rong-Gong Lin II, Times Staff Writer

Saturday, July 7, 2007

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Whoa! Metro is thinking about converting the carpool lanes in LA County into 3+ H.O.T. toll lanes... Solo or 2 passenger motorists buying their way out of traffic? Paying solo commuters in the El Monte Busway, Harbor Transitway?

I think the only way this is going to work is that it follows either the 91 or I-15 toll policy, where one way single, or 2 person occupacy tolls are expensive during rush hour and that the toll lanes accept Fastrak only. There also has to be other transportation choices for systems like these to work properly for everyone (not just the rich). Park & Rides, kiss & rides, direct off/on ramp connections from the HOT lanes to activity and transit ceneters, and frequent transit should also be included in the planning process. This should help prevent the traffic from just shifting to the freeway lanes and side streets.

For example if HOT Lanes were built on the I-10 corridor east of El Monte, they should offer direct off/on ramp connections to Silver Streak station stops and the Silver Streak stations should offer amenities such as benches, shading, timed transfers, "minutes until next bus" signs, etc. This might be a good corridor (east of El Monte Busway) to do the test run of such a thing, but Metro should master plan this thing. I think just converting the carpool lanes to toll lanes without doing anything else will only shift the gridlock elsewhere.

[kenalpern]

Dunno if this is a pipe dream that it'll be published, but here's my letter--where's yours, folks?

To the Times:

As much as I remain open to exploring all forms of transportation funding options, the question of adding or replacing toll lanes for single-occupancy vehicles isn't really addressing the billions of dollars needed to fund the many Southern California transportation projects ignored for the last 30-40 years.

The option of squeezing a few extra drivers on our overcrowded carpool lanes is really just rearranging deck chairs on a sinking Titanic. We need to tell those politicians who dismiss transportation spending as "pork", or give it short shrift because they're beholden to special interests or lobbies, that transportation is not to be treated as a mere afterthought in our local, state and federal budgets.

Let's focus on what will get the job done, which means higher gas taxes, a higher sales tax, and/or a higher commitment from the feds to reimburse the cities and counties and states with a budget that appropriately and realistically addresses transportation needs.

Transportation and infrastructure is the backbone of our economy, ensures a healthy and livable environment and a proper quality of life--it's that simple.

Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D.
President, The Transit Coalition

[damiengoodmon]

Wouldn't converting existing HOT lanes to toll lanes likely trigger a justified legal challenge? It would seem that it would be easier to build new lanes on bond money and argue the tolls go towards bond repayment.

But reapportioning certain lanes just for people that can afford them? I think its easier to just place a toll on the entire "freeway"...at least legally speaking. The politically likelihood of such is a whole 'nother bag of worms.

[nickv]

LA Times Blog - Carpool lane vs. toll road: Metro to talk options

Metro's thinking of turning freeway carpool lanes into toll roads -- and getting rather mixed responses. Some current carpoolers and stickered hybrid drivers aren't liking it; others seem ready to hand over the cash.

The proposal: First, convert the carpool lanes on the 110 in South L.A., the 10 between downtown L.A. and El Monte, and the 210 between Pasadena and Duarte. Then convert the "rest of the 210 east of Duarte, on carpool lanes being built on the 60 and carpool lanes planned on the 10 east of El Monte."

Even when I did have a car around, I rarely drove on those stretches of the freeways, so I really don't know what the situation is like. What I do know is that it'll be a while before anything actually happens -- 2009 at the earliest, according to the L.A. Times.

So get your 2 cents into the Metro now. Metro Board Chair Pam O’Connor will talk about congestion reduction pricing -- including toll roads -- during her next live Internet chat on Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2008, from noon to 1 pm. Log on to chat live then, or if you just can't wait, e-mail advance questions via this form.

[tonyw79sfv]

Interesting to note that the first two carpool lanes subject to being coverted are major Metro bus routes: The I-110 Harbor Freeway Transitway and I-10 El Monte Busway. The I-210 has no major bus routes although some express buses run on them.

Now the bad news, the Westside situation doesn't change because of this quote from that same article: "Left out of the pilot project was the notoriously clogged Westside. The Santa Monica Freeway has no carpool lanes to convert, and the 405 lacks the established express-bus and rail alternatives that are on or parallel to the 110 and 10 freeways." They can never get a break, HOT lanes would make great express bus routes since there is no alternative (ahem, rail); so with no good alternative (ahem, rail), Metro and Caltrans cannot setup HOT lanes in the Westside.

[Tony Fernandez]

I've done some pretty rough calculations for this, and if you assume that along all of these routes that the minimum distance between cars is always 0.4 miles (this is a very lowball number that results) that the minimum profit that Los Angeles will see is $38 million. This is assuming that the tolls are always $7 and raise to $9.50 during rush hour, and I really lowballed rush hour to only 4 hours per day, and we know that's not the case.

[nickv]

Dust Up-Is a toll too much to ask?

[Metro] decided recently to charge motorists tolls to drive in some carpool lanes. Is it fair to charge drivers to use taxpayer-funded roads? How will this affect (if at all) freeway transportation in Los Angeles? USC professor Peter Gordon and the Transit Coalition’s Bart Reed debate.


Foothill Transit Commuter Bus 498 leaves Downtown LA to begin its
journey via the El Monte Busway/carpool lanes to West Covina and Azusa
during the PM rush hour. Portions of the proposed toll lanes in LA include
the conversion of the El Monte Busway.


Quote by Peter Gordon, Professor in USC's School of Policy, Planning and Development:

The unfairness of not charging tolls
By Peter Gordon

Some very smart people have trouble agreeing on the meaning of "fair." Nevertheless, not pricing road access is demonstrably unfair. Why is that?

First, we know that if price does not ration, something else will. When we refuse to price highway access, rationing of available road space is done by overcrowding, and everyone complains about the resulting congestion. It's the urge to "do something" in these cases that causes many of the problems. Only pricing would affect traffic, but we refuse to charge tolls, so we try everything else -- and the more grandiose, the better. In Los Angeles, we try rail transit and carpool lanes. Leaving aside the fact that neither has had any impact on highway conditions, what do we get?

In 1985, transit use in Los Angeles County hit its peak with just under 500 million bus boardings. Then we started building expensive rail lines. We are not yet back to 1985 levels of transit use -- even though we have added more than 1.5 million new residents, most of them at the low-income, transit-using end. We have also spent billions more on transit. In fact, we raised bus fares in 1985 to pay help pay for rail, and in the process kicked millions of riders off the bus system. Adding up the years 1985 to now, we have spent billions of dollars to lose billions of bus riders. How smart is that? How fair is that? Bus rider groups and the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People have had to go to court to get some bus service restored.

Have carpool lanes increased carpooling? There is no evidence they have. Some have referred to carpool lanes as family-pool lanes. When we carpool with non-driving kids and the elderly, are we really taking any cars off the road? Again, billions spent by the public with nothing to show.

So where are we now? It is "unfair" to price road access but "fair" to proceed as we have? Not far away, on State Route 91 in Orange County and on stretches of Interstate 15 in San Diego County, freeway use has been priced for years. Even the early critics who dubbed the toll lanes "Lexus lanes" have backed off. The experience is that people from practically all walks of life have paid to use these lanes, either regularly or on occasion. Many have thought it worth a few dollars to get an extra hour with their kids before going to sleep. Some self-employed business people pay to save time so they can do an extra job during their day.

Forgoing the pricing option leads to trouble, but some always believe they can resort to something "fairer" instead. They never have.

A bad way to spend $214 million
By Bart Reed

Peter,

Roads have always been an interesting element in the marketplace, but are they fair? Tons of resources are wasted to pave over vast expanses of land to connect to suburban sprawl centers. They enable a relative few to drive from their homes to work, shopping areas or recreational events -- trips far too few in number to sustain frequent, local bus services. Such sprawl creates lengthy work commutes and forces way too many cars to take up scarce freeway capacity, leading to our perpetual gridlock.

Creating a series of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes could result in a disaster or, if done correctly, a welcome solution. The Transit Coalition supports HOT, or express-lane, additions where feasible and wants to encourage the use of pricing options to finance new highway capacity, not to jam mixed-flow freeways or take away carpool lanes, which the MTA proposes.

The MTA wants to replace portions of the carpool lanes on the 10 and 210 freeways with toll lanes. It is crazy to punish carpoolers -- who save fuel, reduce congestion and pollute less -- on two of the most successful carpool lanes in the nation by forcing them into adjacent lanes.

Peter, the Rapid Transit District (which preceded the current MTA) lowered its bus fares by nearly 40% in 1984 to encourage increased ridership during the Olympics. The numbers you cite do not include other L.A. County carriers, and since 1985, bus fares have been raised at a rate far less than inflation to pay for the increased costs of equipment, infrastructure, wages and fuel.

Transit usage in L.A. County has actually grown by 40% since 2000, far greater than the county's population gain over the last eight years. Nationally, carpool rates have fallen; conversely, rates have actually stayed the same in Southern California. According to the California Department of Transportation and data collected by the Freeway Performance Measurement System (PDF), highways with carpool lanes tend to carry cars that have higher occupancy rates and result in fewer automobiles on the road -- a reality far different from the "family pool" phenomenon you cite, Peter.


(91 Express Toll Lanes)

Regarding the 91 and 15 freeways, priced lanes were added;they did not replace any existing capacity. Mark Pisano, former executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, once used the term "Lexus lanes" because time means money, so the time of those drivers who make more money has a greater value to society. The 91 and 15 express lanes are available not to the occasional motorist, but only to regular users with expensive transponders, so why do proponents claim that such toll lanes are available to all? HOT lanes and demand-based pricing are perfect candidates to be included in capacity-improvement projects such as the High Desert Corridor (which would link 14 Freeway in Palmdale to I-15 in Victorville), the proposed I-710 tunnel underneath South Pasadena and extending the 91 express lanes into Riverside County.

Peter, I don't see how you can defend the MTA's plan for the 210 and 10 freeways given the negative results that will surely arise. The $214 million that Washington will award the MTA for implementing the toll-lane plan is half of what it would cost to extend the Gold Line light rail down the 210 corridor, a more worthwhile project. Instead, the MTA will now install toll-collection points on our carpool lanes, forcing carpoolers out and gouging drivers up to $10 to drive in the lanes they've already paid for. With your logic, and gas about to cost more than $4 a gallon, is it unreasonable to predict that more people than ever will use carpool lanes? Working Americans, women with children, construction-worker crews, carpoolers, vanpools, transit users or just folks sharing a ride to business meetings would be hurt by the MTA's plan.


(Very expensive gas prices have forced commuters to consider alternative
modes of transportation. The Press Enterprise has reported that ridership
on Metrolink trains comming out of the Inland Empire is up 8% from
last March. The report also shows a 4% increase in the number of people
taking the RTA bus.)

Peter, the MTA should use the $214 million to put people to work -- during what already appears to be the worst recession since the 1980s -- to build the shelf-ready, capacity-enhancing Gold Line along the 210 Freeway. You are right: Things aren't "fairer."

From the LA Times Opinion

Bart Reed is executive director of the Transit Coalition, a Sylmar-based nonprofit organization dealing with issues of transportation, mobility and land use planning.

[Tony Fernandez]

I was under the impression that the HOT lanes would be 2 lanes wide and would probably be free for those who carpool with 3 or more. Then that seems like it would work for the East LA County freeways.

[nickv]

I was under the impression that the HOT lanes would be 2 lanes wide and would probably be free for those who carpool with 3 or more. Then that seems like it would work for the East LA County freeways.

The existing carpool lanes except for the Harbor Transitway have one lane in each direction. The Harbor Transitway has two in each direction.

I've driven southbound on the Harbor Transitway several years ago during the PM rush hour and the lanes were heavy, but speeds were actually pretty good. I also rode a Metro local-plus bus via the El Monte Busway going to LAUS during the PM rush hour several years back. The eastbound side of the busway was high in volume, had some areas of reduced speeds, but was moving much better than the regular lanes.

[jejozwik]

sadly that is not the case anymore. in my 2 years in san gabriel i have seen the hov lane go from godsend to stress inducer.

simple fact is, there are too many cars trying to use the lanes. during pm rush[3]hour the hov lane, after merging back with the main 10 freeway alignment, become slower then the free-flow lanes.

the el monte busway portion from union station to cal-state flow rather well. unless there is a sub 50 mpg car or bus. in which dual lanes would solve. but after cal-state, when the busway merges back near the freeway the whole system shuts down. and does not recover, even after the del mar flyover.

[Tony Fernandez]

I know the current situation with HOV lanes (I've driven on the 210 carpool lanes many times and they're just terrible. At this point they move slower than the mixed-flow lanes), but I thought that all of the HOT lanes would be two lanes wide in each direction. So the 210 HOT lanes would have to take away a lane from regular traffic. Maybe I was just misinformed, or maybe somebody in support of the HOT lanes speaks conveniently only about the Harbor Transitway?

[jejozwik]

its my understanding that caltrans will not take a free flowing traffic lane and convert it into HOV lane with out building a replacement free flow.

so if that were the case on the 210 they would have to be adding another lane to the freeway somehow.

the 10 busway seems [for the most part] to have enough width to support dual lanes

[Transit Coalition]

No, the 10 / 210 proposals do not include building new capacity. The proposal is to let those who want to pay and purchase a transponder to use the current HOV lane and to charge 2-person carpools a fee. The result will be to jam free flow and HOV lanes. This isn't the first time social engineering has screwed around with the 10 lanes. There was the disaster in 2000, where the state had to roll back legislation that changed the freeway to allow 2-person carpools and jammed the whole route up for months.

And, yes, there is width on the 10, but that is a legal emergency lane and it can't be used for vehicles.

[Tony Fernandez]

Well today's article was very interesting. I never figured that the two of you would have agreed somewhat! Peter didn't seem too far off today like he was with the previous days messages, and it was definitely a great read.

I just have one thing, I don't understand how you can call the carpool lanes on the 210 successful. I used to drive that freeway all the time and those carpool lanes move just as slow if not slower than regular traffic. I'm sure a ton of people use them, but I don't see the advantage. And how can you call them successful if there is no incentive for carpooling anymore?

[Transit Coalition]

May 1, 2008 11:05:27 GMT -8 Tony Fernandez said:

Well today's article was very interesting. I never figured that the two of you would have agreed somewhat! Peter didn't seem too far off today like he was with the previous days messages, and it was definitely a great read.

I just have one thing, I don't understand how you can call the carpool lanes on the 210 successful. I used to drive that freeway all the time and those carpool lanes move just as slow if not slower than regular traffic. I'm sure a ton of people use them, but I don't see the advantage. And how can you call them successful if there is no incentive for carpooling anymore?

Yes, somewhat is about all. Taking lanes from the already extremely well used 10 /210 HOV will probably result in a lot of angry motorists and some political heads may roll. How are you going to explain to motorists whose trips are even slower that this was an improvement and if you really want to go faster, go buy a transponder and pay $10 each way? Peter thinks this is just fine.

Check out the latest Dust Up installments. We don't agree on much on Part 4 and 5. I can guarantee that.

Please take a minute and post your comments on the Times website, as lots of hits means the Times might ask me back.

Here is last years Dust Up called: Traffic Snarl

[Tony Fernandez]

The only real solution that I ever saw for the 210 was forcing the minimum amount of rider to be 3 during rush hour just like on the 10. Or there's always the Gold Line extension that would be much more effective.

There's a distinct difference in your proposal for HOT lanes and what Peter Gordon has been proposing. Wheras you are offering alternatives and a real, long-term solution by charging drivers, Peter is just trying to maximize the effectiveness of freeways by forcing off-peak trips.

Interesting that Peter offers no real solution in the Day 2 article. And I do hope that the LA Times asks you back for more input. These articles have been great to read and it's nice to actually find truth by reading these arguments.

[Tony Fernandez]

Another interesting discussion today. It seems that the problem with planning in this city is not that it is done wrong, but that it is not done! I think it wasn't too long ago that one of the city council members said that planning should be done by the city council and not the planning department. Something needs to change in this city or we are going to be stuck with heavy traffic and people arguing that they do not want development. We need a cohesive plan for the metropolis or else our "slums" as Bart Reed put it will continue to deteriorate while the outskirts get all of the development.

If anyone could get the name of the city council member who said that, I would really appreciate it.

[rubbertoe]

I just received an e-mail from Metro. They have just begun shipping the transponders to be used on the 110 and 10 Express Lanes. I filled out the required paperwork, they should arrive within 5 business days. Looks like the live date might be 9-30-12.

RT