According to this article in the Washington Post, an engineering company has proposed a plan to build a new road parallel to parts of the Washington beltway. Built with private funds, the road would be paid for with user tolls, and hopefully provide faster transit through a heavily congested area.
Critics have derided these so called “Lexus lanes,” claiming they are unfair to motorists who cannot affort the tolls. But I fail to see how any harm is done them. The free road is still there, and may even be less congested as a result of more people driving the alternate route. There are plenty of instances where more money allows one a faster and pleasanter journey, including first class plane seats, Concorde service, or the Accela high-speed train. Are these discriminatory?
There are two objections to the project that I can see. First is the need to procure land rights to build the road. If Fluor engineerinng can buy up the land without state help, more power to them. Second is the whole road - traffic - pollution viscios cycle,but if this is truely a private project built without state funds, I say go for it!
The opposition (on equity grounds) seems kinda knee jerk. If there was a competing proposal to build the additional lanes toll-free and with public funds, perhaps then a debate can ensue between the benefits and equities of less public spending but possibly unaffordable access v. more public spending but equal access.
The article, however, didn’t give any indication that the State of Virginia was planning to build the extra lanes. So now the debate is less congestion for those willing to pay for less congestion (with the added bonus of less congestion in the free lanes) v. the same (and probably increasing) congestion for everybody.
It makes no sense to say that if we can’t have a public benefit that is equally available to all, we shouldn’t have that public benefit at all.
Sua
P.S. My response assumes that extra lanes will decrease congestion, be a public benefit, etc. That is, of course, by no means certain.
After reading the article it was unclear to me who would actually own the road, a private corporation or the public taxpayers? If the corporation owns the road, would state laws apply? Speed limits, license requirements, etc? Who determines ‘at fault’ in an accident? Seems like there would have to be some sort of contract involved to protect the owner of the road before you would be allowed access to it. Could one of our board lawyers clear that up for me please?
Here is a site from 1996 on the Toll Road Experimentin Orange Country, CA. This road parallels California 91 Freeway for about 7 miles. When it was approved the agreement was that the Riverside Freeway (route 91) would not be widened until the toll road was profitable. This results in unbelievable traffic jams on the 91 because the toll road has never been profitable. None of the other toll roads was ever built. Just recently it was reported in the Los Angeles Times that the state will buy the toll road and abandon the experiment.
Such a scheme might work in the east because people there are more friendly to toll roads. My wife and I took a trip to New York City in 1962 and I particularly remember the Pennsylvania Turnpike. For much of the way it was a two lane, bi-directional road using the eastbound lanes because the westbound was under repair. That didn’t stop them from collecting the usual toll every so often.
Well, David, that just demonstrates that state governments should spend more money to hire better attorneys. I didn’t see anything in the article that indicates that Virginia was being so asinine as to allow the road builders to control when or if they could widen the beltway.
Any jackass with a lick of sense would have had the contract read that the state wouldn’t widen Route 91 until the tollway became profitable or such and such a date, whichever came first.
Oh, no doubt about the unbelievable stupidity of the agreement from the state’s point of view. However, despite the fact that the 91 freeway is a parking lot during the morning and evening commutes and has been for the 15 years or so that the toll road has been in operation, still not enough traffic switched to the toll road to make it profitable.
Hmmm, I’m not sure who is more stupid, the state gvt or the people wasting hours of their time for fifteen years by refusing to use a working alternate route. The tollway in CA costs how much to use? And people would save how much time everyday if they used the toll road instead of the “parking lot” on Route 91? Anyone making more than minimum wage would probably be better off (bigger paycheck, more free time) if they shaved an hour off their total daily commute.
How much does the toll road have to earn to make itself profitable? Is it net profit or gross? (Is its profitability affected by the corporate officers’ salaries?)
local and state governments must condone these private toll roads because it would be very simple to bury any attempts at purchasing prospective lands by simply denying zoning permits and other such perhaps allowing the construction of the road.
State Route 91 is the only connection between Orange and Riverside Counties, so you think people would use the TOLL LANES if the FREEway is crowded but people in the Los Angeles Area are in my opinion really big cheapskates.
I think the difference between other toll roads across the USA is that the whole roadway is a tollway. In LA if people have a choice they will sit for two hours in traffic instead of paying $4.00 dollars one-way.
Just to set the record straight, the term “freeway” didn’t originate because tolls are not charged but rather because the route is free of cross traffic.
And by the way as far as “cheapness” goes, the part of CA 91 in question isn’t in the city of Los Angeles. It isn’t even in the county of Los Angeles. Most of the travelers on it are from San Bernardino, Orange and Riverside counties. Why denigrate LA for the actions of people from elsewere?
Re: David Simmons
I actually said FREEway as a joke.
But ask any of the 16 million people living in the sprawling LA metro area which is comprised of LA, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Orange counties if they live in Los Angeles and they would say yes.
LA doesn’t end at the city limits.
Most commuters on the 91 live in Riverside county and are commuting to Orange or LA county and reflect the fact that people in LA don’t want to pay to drive.
$4.00 one way during peak hours on the Toll Lanes is seen as too expensive for your average commuter.
$15.00 one way on the Metrolink Commuter train is too much.
$1.35 for MTA busing of Light Rail or Subway is too much.
$1.00 fare for all other busing companies is too much.
Taking United Airlines from Ontario to LAX for $75.00 is too much.
In reality using alternative transportation isn’t much more expensive, and I use it regularly. The problem is that the LA Metro Area is over 150 miles wide and 100 miles long, from Oxnard to Redlands and from Palmdale to San Clemente.
When the Toll Lanes were being built everyone out here in suburbia that the traffic nightmares would be over, well they were wrong.
Nail on the head. If this is truly done with all private funds, what’s the harm? I think land rights will be the issue. I don’t think it’s possible to do so without harming a great number of private individuals or using public lands; neither is attractive to me. I suppose if the builder offers all of the landowners so much dough that they gladly sell, then it’s okey-dokey. But far more likely, I think, will be that they convince politicians to coerce recalcitrant landowners to sell and/or get some sort of subsidy/discount/etc. to purchase public land.
If it were all on private property… who cares? No different than if all the cars were loaded on a ferry and shipped by boat, bypassing the congestion. Or if things in Orlando became so bad that Disney decided to charge a toll to use the park ringroads to bypass city traffic.
I live in LA too. I have never taken the toll roads but the problem that I see with the 91 toll road is that you are paying what ever that amount to save yourself only about 10 or 20 min. of your drive. Once the toll road ends, you are still in traffic heading toward LA. Might as well save youself a couple of dollars and sit in traffic for a few more min.
I didn’t see anything in the article that indicates that Virginia was being so asinine as to allow the road builders to control when or if they could widen the beltway.