405 express toll lanes a mixed bag, says WSDOT
Published 6:00 pm Tuesday, January 26, 2016
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Washington State Department of Transportation officials gave the Bellevue City Council a rundown of the Interstate-405 express toll lanes’ effectiveness at Monday’s meeting.
The verdict? Even according to WSDOT data, results now are a mixed bag and it may be too early to tell if the lanes are headed for a permanent place on the freeway.
I-405 from Lynnwood through Bellevue is Washington’s most congested corridor, and the lanes were approved in 2011 to provide improved mobility in the corridor.
A community group, Stop405Tolls.org, has rejected initial findings from WSDOT and anger over the lanes has been potent enough to spur legislation seeking change of the toll lanes.
However, the department claims that more people than they even initially expected have used the lanes since they were opened in September.
“We’re getting a lot more use early on than we had projected,” said Patty Rubstello, assistant secretary for tolling for WSDOT. “And that’s really good news from the standpoint that those drivers who are using those express lanes are not sitting in general purpose lanes in congestion.”
But according to WSDOT’s presentation, several issues have arisen from the first quarter of use.
While more than one million trips are already taken through the lanes each month (the number WSDOT predicted they might see after two years of operation), carpool use is lower than expected.
This may be attributed to confusing laws regarding carpool use in the express toll lanes. Carpools of two people are allowed to travel in the lanes during non-peak hours. Carpools of three or more can use the lanes during peak hours if they have a flex pass set to HOV mode.
More rules for carpools and single occupancy vehicles as well as motorcycles and other vehicles can be found on the WSDOT website.
Congestion on the weekend has increased since the installation of the lanes between Bothell and Lynnwood, where the express toll lanes (which take up two lanes between Bellevue and Bothell) go down to one lane. Travel times between the two communities in north King County have increased by an average of four minutes per trip in the regular lanes.
The tolls also have hit the maximum $10 more often than expected, proving that some people are willing to pay the amount. Users of the lanes pay only the price they see listed when they enter, no matter what prices they may see miles down the road.
Earlier this month, WSDOT released a tool for motorists to estimate travel time and cost.
WSDOT said the lanes have helped traffic across the board for commuters heading southbound on 405. Volume and travel times have both improved, Rubstello said. Northbound is a little harder to get a grasp on. Traffic has improved heading north everywhere except merging traffic at the State Route 520 interchange and the bottleneck at SR-527.
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