I Knew This Would Happen
Mood:  smelly
Topic: Rants
I knew it - they should have consulted me before they went ahead and set up the toll lane. I've already had one rant, which admittedly was pretty much my own doing, but this time it's all on them.

The new toll lane went into effect Monday and there are already problems. The DOT maintains the purpose of the toll lane is "… not to increase congestion or maximize revenue…” Hmmm, guess where the problems lie.

Congestion

Last week, as they painted the new lane division lines along the toll lane - two solid white lines - to separate it from the general lanes, I knew right off the bat that there was going to be a problem. Every so often the lines went from the double white lines down to a dashed white line to indicate where the toll lane users were supposed to enter and exit the toll lane. It meant the toll lane users would have to “sit” in the general lane until they reached the entry/exit points. The idea behind these sections was to allow for a safer transition to the toll lane. Users wouldn’t be cutting across two lanes of traffic to get in the toll lane right away. Instead, they would take their time and gradually get into position to enter the toll lane. Like that was going to happen. They were still going to cut over. Even though they couldn’t get into the lane right away, they could, and believe me would, feel the need to, “get into position” right away. On top of that, I measured and while it’s generally a half mile, at one point the distance from one entry/exit point to the next is 1 mile! And there are two highway entrance ramps within that mile!! Combine that with the users being forced to “take their time” and to me it spelled disaster. And I was right.


Revenue

They said tolls would range from $1 to $4 during rush hour. While they did fall in that range, I was astounded to learn that from the beginning of the afternoon rush hour at 3:30pm up until 5:40pm (nearly the 6pm end) the toll was $.50. At 5:45pm when I drove past the sign that listed the fee, it was $4. While that seems fine on first take, the lanes are working properly with the fee going up as the lane becomes more heavily traveled thus causing the money conscious solo-drivers to not use the lane and keep traffic flowing at 50-55 mph, look again. If leaving the fee low for so long and only upping it at the end of rush hour is not enticing users to sign up I don’t know what is. Who, other than misers, wouldn’t pay $.50 to get home in half the time? Officials reported a rush to sign up for accounts Tuesday. No surprise. Accounts must be opened with a $40 balance and the transponder is $1.50 a month...

Congestion AND revenue

It used to be that solo drivers could use the commuter lane outside of rush hour and it was a big help let me tell you. When 6pm came there would be a flux of solo drivers moving over to take advantage of that third lane. It really got things moving again. Now, with the toll always in effect, solo-drivers without a pass cannot use the lane – ever! This has bogged up the general lanes and added up to an additional 15 minutes to some commutes. So sorry, they can’t move over to the third lane, but gee, maybe they should sign up for the pass so they could get in that toll lane – then they wouldn’t have to wait so long. Then DOT could up the fee because there are more people in the toll lane.

The director of the project said "...I don't think what we see this week has anything to do with how it will operate." Yeah, right.