This weekend, a sophisticated network of sensors and electronic signs flashed to life on 15.5 miles of I-85 in Gwinnett and DeKalb counties. Gone are the HOV lanes, touted in the 1990s as Georgia’s solution to its growing traffic problems. In their place are toll lanes that offer solo drivers a way out of congestion — for a price.
It’s a first for Georgia, but it’s only the beginning.
If the state’s plans work out, metro Atlanta drivers will encounter such lanes on nearly every interstate stretch they travel. The I-85 pilot project will spread in the next 30 years to 151 miles, according to regional and state planners, and more after that.
Costing perhaps $16 billion — a mix of taxpayer, toll and private dollars — the entire 285-mile network could transform metro Atlanta commuting, offering choice, a new way of financing roads and futuristic enforcement.
So will it work?
Proponents say it’s the best answer we have. For others, it prompts questions of fairness and finance — and what it will do to traffic congestion.
‘The ultimate goal’
Georgia’s optional toll lanes have one chief aim, state officials say: to create one spot with reliable flow and offer that option to everyone who can pay.
“The ultimate goal is to keep that traffic” — in the toll lanes — “free-flowing,” said Mark Burris, a professor who studies driver behavior at Texas A&M University. Except when accidents shut it down, he said, “In every case that has been successfully done.”
But many metro Atlantans say it unfairly gives an advantage to people with more money.
Mark Parker, who lives in Lawrenceville and works in Atlanta, said the express lanes are “basically for rich people.”
State Transportation Planning Director Todd Long countered that people of all incomes will come to value it “when they’ve got to get to job appointments, they’ve got to get to weddings, funerals, ball games, you name it.”
State planners have given up on being able to fund enough lanes for free-flowing traffic for everyone all the time. Instead, they reason, optional toll lanes at least provide a choice.
Ultimately, a 285-mile “express lane” system would span the entire metro Atlanta highway network, taking over all its HOV lanes. In addition to the I-85 project, 41 miles of toll lanes are already scheduled to open to traffic in the region by 2016.
The State Road and Tollway Authority has issued more than 70,000 Peach Passes, most of them toll-paying. The Peach Passes are needed to use the I-85 toll lanes.
The I-85 express lanes will still allow car pools to ride free, but they must have at least three people. It allows solo drivers into the lanes for the first time, but they and two-person car pools must pay a toll.
The fee rises and falls with congestion in the main lanes, always aiming to stay high enough to keep out enough people that the lanes remain free-flowing, at least 45 mph.
No guarantee
The I-85 project also dedicates $120 million to new Xpress commuter bus service, and the toll lanes will provide free, swift passage to buses.
But no one knows for sure what will happen to traffic.
Even the Peach Pass contract has a disclaimer that there’s no guarantee the toll lanes will flow. The I-85 toll project, though, is likely to make traffic in the main lanes slightly worse, according to a state study.
That’s because this project doesn’t add any new lanes; it uses existing lanes, an idea that doesn’t sit well with Gov. Nathan Deal or U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Some other future projects — such as the I-75/I-575 project in Cobb and Cherokee counties — would build additional lanes, but the state’s official vision eventually calls for putting tolls on the entire existing HOV system.
Many I-85 commuters aren’t happy. Marlene Covington of Lawrenceville will use the I-85 toll lanes because she has to, but the project is a “smoke-and-mirrors routine,” she said.
“It’s holding something up and saying, ‘Doesn’t this look better?’ No, it doesn’t look better.”
She said charging more for people to use the road when they need it most is not in the public interest. She was also concerned that it will confuse drivers. State officials have invested in an education campaign.
Doing things the simple, traditional way — building more free lanes — would help, but it would cost so much that the state can’t afford it, said Gena Evans, director of SRTA.
“We’ve been building and building and building,” Evans said, widening highways that just fill up again.
Minnesota converted some HOV lanes to toll lanes starting in 2005, and “it works fantastic,” said Nick Thompson, division director for policy, safety and strategic initiatives at the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Some drivers here are on board.
As an idea, “it’s awesome,” said Kristi Thames, a Marietta homemaker, though she’s hesitant because they require taxpayer subsidies to build.
For Michael Tucker of Lawrenceville, it’s already a bust.
“I think it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said Tucker, an analyst for a marketing agency in Atlanta. He and some other I-85 commuters are dismayed at the number of HOV access points that were removed to help continuous flow in the toll lane. The state has hired a consultant to look into changes.
Paying the piper
The $16 billion cost of the entire express lane network would dwarf most other state endeavors.
Toll revenue would help with that cost.
Without the tolls, some of the projects couldn’t be built.
For the full $16 billion metro Atlanta network, an estimated subsidy of $7 billion would be required, according to state documents. State officials emphasize that the complete network is a long-range dream.
On I-85, drivers will pay between 10 cents and 90 cents per mile. That won’t cover the lanes’ costs.
The subsidy for the I-85 express lanes starts out at about $55 million, the current estimated cost of implementing the project. It was kick-started by a $12.5 million federal grant.
The authority estimates that a subsidy also will be necessary for the operations costs at the beginning, although toll revenue is expected to more than double over time.
Projects under way now on I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties, and on I-75 south of the Perimeter, also require state funds. By 2040, metro Atlanta is scheduled to spend $5.4 billion on optional toll lane projects. Private investors attracted by the toll money would help pay.
When projects rely on toll revenue to finance their construction, however, that carries a risk if traffic doesn’t materialize.
In San Diego, the South Bay Expressway filed for bankruptcy last year. In 2003, bondholders foreclosed on the Camino Colombia toll road in Texas.
High-tech roads
As much as 15 percent of HOV traffic at rush hour is illegal traffic that shouldn’t be there, according to a state report on I-85. Now the lanes may be even more attractive to violators, because speedy flow is a near guarantee, solo drivers are allowed in, and the only thing stopping them is the need to pay.
But state officials hope their high-tech security system will keep the traffic legit.
Violators risk a $25 fee from the authority, in addition to a citation of up to $150 from police.
The project funds four state patrolmen dedicated to the lanes, looking for solo drivers and two-person car pools that don’t have a paying Peach Pass. Minnesota’s toll lanes have patrol officers, too, and violation rates there are lower than when the lanes were HOV lanes, said Thompson.
The officers’ cars along I-85 are also equipped with computerized readers that instantly compare drivers’ license plates to a database of registered toll drivers.
Sixty-seven automated violation cameras line the median, looking for cars that aren’t registered, or that have crossed the solid double line, SRTA staff said.
And all of that information from all those drivers, including where they’ve been on the lanes, now sits in state databases. It’s exempted from regular public access to state records, Evans said. But court-ordered subpoenas are another matter, and sleuths could work with attorneys to get the records for cases on infidelity, runaway children, or workers dallying on the clock, said one private investigator.
“As investigators, we wouldn’t be too upset about that information being available, if you know what I mean,” said Niall Cronnolly, president of Atlanta-based Eagle Investigative Services.
Georgia planners can’t say for sure how that or other aspects of the lanes will go over. But for now, the region’s eggs are in the express lane basket.
“This is a pilot,” Long said. “We’re going to see how it works.”
By the numbers
$60 million: The budget for the road project, including a contingency buffer
$12.5 million: The federal grant that kick-started the road project (the whole grant was $110 million)
$97.5 million: The rest of the federal grant, going to expanded Xpress bus service
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