Md. and Va. to Study Beltway Toll Lanes

Pay-to-Drive Option Would Cover Half of Highway if Proposals Are Approved

The governors of Virginia and Maryland announced plans yesterday to study adding express toll lanes to 28 miles of the region's major commuter routes, including large portions of the Capital Beltway, as both states push to build the new-style highways.

Maryland will lead a study on adding toll lanes to 14 miles of the Beltway from Georgetown Pike across the American Legion Bridge and onto Interstate 270 to its juncture with Interstate 370.

Virginia transportation officials will lead a study on adding the lanes to 14 miles of the Beltway from Springfield across the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to Route 5 in Maryland. Officials said that study would consider transit options, because the replacement bridge now under construction is designed to carry Metrorail.

Combined with a plan already underway in Virginia to add toll lanes between Springfield and Georgetown Pike, the three stretches would bring express lanes to about half the 64-mile Beltway, including the entire 22-mile Virginia portion. If a map of the Beltway were a clock face, the lanes would stretch from about 4 to 10.

The studies will cost $1 million each and take about 18 months. It is difficult to say when the lanes would be built, but the minimum time is about five years after completion of the studies. The states could decide to turn the projects over to private companies to speed construction. The lanes already planned in Virginia, to be built and operated by two private firms, are scheduled to open in 2010.

Officials from both states said the lanes would virtually guarantee drivers a congestion-free ride, because tolls would vary with traffic, rising during peak times to control demand.

Drivers would need electronic transponders, such as those used by E-ZPass customers, to enter the new lanes. Gated tollbooths would be unnecessary. Electronic devices would read the transponders and charge motorists' accounts. Signs would tell them how much they were paying.

Whether carpoolers would be allowed to ride free must be decided, officials said.

Virginia favors the high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane system. Carpoolers would travel for free, while solo drivers could choose to pay. Maryland transportation officials favor charging all drivers.

HOT lanes were first pioneered in California a decade ago but have only recently become a popular trend in transportation planning as states look for solutions to traffic congestion. HOT lanes opened this summer in Minneapolis and are under construction in Denver and Houston.

Politicians and planners laud the express toll lanes as a way to give people a traffic-free option, albeit at considerable cost. They also say the concept allows for bus service on highways like the Beltway, because a congestion-free ride permits buses to maintain schedules. They are also attractive because toll revenue can be used to pay for them or to attract private firms to invest in them.

State officials in Virginia have pursued them as aggressively as anyone. Within the last 17 months, the state has announced plans to pursue HOT lanes on its portion of the Beltway and on a 56-mile stretch of Interstate 95 and Interstate 395 between Spotsylvania County and the 14th Street bridge. On Tuesday, a panel of transportation experts plans to recommend to the Virginia Department of Transportation one of two proposals for that project.