HOT question: tolls during non-rush hour |
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MDC
New Slug Joined: 04 Dec 2002 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Posted: 25 Aug 2005 at 8:16pm |
NoSUV,
You haven't made the case that HOT reduces congestion even slightly. We do know that it will reduce ride sharing though. |
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NoSUV
New Slug Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Max, I think it comes down to the inability to solve the overall congestion problem. Tolls will allow the governemnt to control how many cars are in the express lanes, and then tell those in the regular lanes that they can pay if they don't want to sit in traffic, so quit complaining. Express lanes as they are now move at least 35 mph faster than the regular lanes, and that's WITH hybrids. Some hybrid owners are willing to pay for the priviledge of less congestion, and removal of the exemption mobilizes them to support tolls. The slug anti-hybrid exemption sentiment is partially responsible for this situation - this site was quoted by VDOT as rationale for recommending removal of the exemption. Delegates in the area also refer to slugs when making proposals to remove the exemption. Is it any wonder that the hybrid owners are pro-toll?
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Max_28756
New Slug Joined: 25 Feb 2004 Location: Va Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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NoSUV,
I drove over that bridge for 3 years. It was HOV-2 with one lane to go through. You still had to slow so they could take a look. It became worse when a carrier was in port. We are about to go through the same thing but increased 100 fold. The only people making these decisions don't drive the roads during the rush hour(s). They consider a traffic jam - hitting 3 red lights on their drive to the office. This whole HOT idea is so ridiculous it's maddening to even think it's being considered! |
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fryed_1
New Slug Joined: 27 Jul 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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I think they should issue neck braces with small explosive charges in them with coin slots. If you aren't wearing them when you enter the lanes, you get charges an exuberant amount of money. If you are wearing them you can safely make it onto the HOT/HOV lanes. If you try to cheat in any way by not paying toll, they explode sending your and your passengers' heads into orbit.
Seriously though, without massive construction or separating HOV/HOT lanes completely or manned toll booths (which would slow traffic horrendously and defeat the purpose of the highspeed lanes), I don't see how they could effectively govern those with 3 or more passengers from SOV. |
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NoSUV
New Slug Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Sponge, I know a much smaller scale system was used in San Diego for the Coronado Bay bridge. Toll booths were set up at one end, with the right lane for HOV. Tolls were manually collected, and traffic backed up for miles.
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SpongeBob
New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Even split ramps wouldn't work because who is there to enforce it? And how can the gantry tell if you paid or not? When your car passes under, the gantry registers your Smarttag and takes cash from your account. An SOV in a van could drive under without a Smarttag and then exit at the SOV ramp. Who's gonna know?
No, the only way a multi-access, multi-route, multi-tollbooth system works is if EVERYONE on it is charged on a per-mile basis. The engineers at Fluor and Clark know this. The marketers of HOT know it. The people at VDOT know it. For a year I've asked here for working examples from comparable highway systems. I've written to experts asking about technological solutions to counting passengers. I've asked for people to offer answers on how to mix SOV and free HOV. You know what I've learned? No one has ever built such a complicated tolling system. Experts admit no technology exists to count passengers. HOV is indistinguishable from SOV: the toll charge will be same. |
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Bob
New Slug Joined: 14 Dec 2001 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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HOV enforcement will be a nightmare and I agree that with new entrance and exit points it makes it basically impossible. The only way it could be done would be to have the enforcement areas split into HOV and toll lanes (on the same ramp), ie, a two lane onramp or offramp. I dont see how that is possible from an engineering or practicality standpoint.
One of the companies said they are going to herd the HOVS into a separate lane for enforcement at the Pentagon, while the SOVs whiz by to the left. But how do you do that at 5 (?) different exit ramps? |
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SpongeBob
New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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--sigh--
Goober, there CANNOT BE separate HOV and Toll entrances. The enforcement of the toll and the tolling itself are linked and must take place at the same point. Otherwise, I can drive onto the lanes through the HOV entrance, put my Smarttag in the "sock" which keeps the gantries from reading it (this is how it is done, btw,) and go my merry way. The tolling gantry can't tell if I'm HOV or SOV, so what does it do? Why, it lets me pass for free, doesn't it. Because as far as it can tell, I'm HOV. The difference between dinky little SR-91 and our system is that ours is intended to be multi-access and multi-route and multi-toll-boothed. If there was a single entrance point on the system, and only a few exit points downstream from that, you could do HOV enforcement and tolling at that single point and it would work (while still discouraging ridesharing, of course.) But on the system Fluor and Clark are proposing, it CANNOT BE DONE. They say as bloody much in their proposals! And VDOT has asked them, "Why don't you tell us how you plan to accomodate HOV?" No answer has been given because there IS NO ANSWER. |
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goober
New Slug Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 2 |
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Does including a separate HOT and HOV ENTRANCE lanes make it possible to keep HOV free? Sponge says that "THERE WILL BE NO FREE HOV BECAUSE THERE IS NO TECHNOLOGY TO DO IT!" However, you should not be required to use Smarttag if you have an HOV-3.
You don't need to "PUT A PERSON ON EVERY OFFRAMP 24/7, ESPECIALLY THE HIGH-SPEED SLIP-RAMPS", just a person in an "HOV only entrance" for the duration of HOV hours. However, a problem will arise when the decision makers start to charge HOVers, like they did in California, SR-91 HOT. The contractors won't guarantee that HOV will be free because they want a way to save their asses in the event that a substantial number in the HOT lanes are HOVs (they don't generate revenue). Is it unrealistic to demand that if they build HOT, HOV will be free forever? Goober |
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gmugrad
New Slug Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0 |
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Yeah we make so much in DC that is why so many of us live out in stafford. Hello the prices are through the roof here and normal people don't make that much. The local jobs pay dirt and so that is why so many of us work in DC and slug. Open our wallets my butt.
Hot lanes won't work. The only thing that will work is getting the DC companies to open their eyes and allow for telecommuting centers in fredericksburg. |
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