Initial Financial Failure of SR91 Hot Lanes in LA
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Topic: Initial Financial Failure of SR91 Hot Lanes in LA
Posted By: Bob
Subject: Initial Financial Failure of SR91 Hot Lanes in LA
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 10:52am
from www.tollroadsnews.info
Information on the intial failure of SR91 HOT lanes and the factors that precipitated investors to bail out and sell back to the county agency. Non-compete clause was major factor. Bob
After seven years of investor ownership they were sold for $207m plus some debt defeasement on Jan 1 2003 to Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA). The investors had other avenues for their investment and the local managers had tired of constant political demagoguery and litigation about the toll concession's no-extra free lanes or "non-compete" provision.
As part of the buy-out of the concession and the transfer to OCTA the restriction on extra free lanes was quashed.
see www.91expresslanes.com
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Posted By: n/a
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 1:13pm
I must have been reading a different article. The article "2006.09.13 Enforcement needed on 91 Express Lanes - lane crashers," states: "The county has received offers of over $500m for the business (rights to manage the HOT lanes) from investor groups. However county operations of the tollroad are a political as well as a financial success, and there is a cloud over even the idea of private ownership from the controversies that surrounded first seven years of the project." And while this article points to private ownership controversy, money talks folks, and aparrently HOV walks! With this kind of success we are all screwed!
Other local news hints at the future HOT backups at toll booths as drivers enter and exit in response to fee-per-mile charges, "2006.09.12 Rear ender at Baltimore tunnel toll plaza incinerates man," "A rear end collision early yesterday afternoon on the northbound approach to the toll plaza of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel set off a fire in a Chevy van and trapped a passenger who was burned to death before he could be gotten out." Tragic!
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Posted By: Bob
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 2:15pm
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One of the real problems with HOT lanes on 95 is that the "experts" continually point to the success of other lanes around the country. Problem is, there is no analog for us, since we are massively successful as an HOV lane. Of course, any failed HOV, such as in Denver, will be a ringing "success" as at HOT lane. How could it not be? I will repeat, what is being proposed here has no analog anywhere in the world. I would be glad to look at any documentation, but I have seen nothing else that isn't a rinky dink failed HOV lane that has been converted, usually for about a 10 mile length.
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Posted By: NoSUV
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 3:06pm
Bob - the problem is the documented 2nd worst congestion in the region. Apparently, the system here, overall, is a failure. Anytime you have a failure, you look to make changes. While YOU may think the NoVA region is massively successful with HOV, others might think that having the 2nd worst congestion points to a different conclusion.
Have you proposed anything that has a prayer of being successful for the regular lanes? Wishing that all of the drivers would carpool hasn't seemed to work...
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Posted By: SpongeBob
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 3:41pm
No, wishing them away wouldn't work. We can't seem to even wish YOU away.
But, as for proposing ideas to improve the whole system, we have posted many here. All the ideas essentially work to encourage ride-sharing, or discourage solo driving, or spread congestion out over time. You never seem to answer them, NoSUV. Wonder why?
Hmm. And you never offer any ideas of your own, either, do you?
Hmm. What DO you do, NoSUV?
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Posted By: n/a
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 4:06pm
As I posted before, studies have shown that the reason for our traffic congestion is that although we have a comparable volume of traffic on the roads as other metro areas, all of our commuters travel from the burbs to one place (DC) in the morning and from one place (DC) out ot the burbs in the evening.
For example, NY has terrible traffic, but people commute all over the five buroughs, from many places to many places, and the population of Manhattan does not increase that much in a work day. DC, however, begins with a population of about 600,000 residents and grows by millions of workers each workday. Our roads handle a much larger volume of traffic in one direction each morning and in reverse each night. And BTW commute time is only one measure of traffic.
Get smart people! There is not one magic bullet for our commuting problems. They are unique and complicated. We need to do many things to contribute to our solution. HOV lanes, carpooling, mass transit are all good choices. SOV/HOT commuting is not.
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Posted By: slugjo
Date Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 9:42pm
Here is my constructive suggestion, even though I know this is not an effective forum for actually doing anything, and all there are here are the sluglines.com personalities and the trolls. (I think it is all hopeless, and I am going to get out of here at the earliest possible time.) We don't need HOT, as follows (just thinking outside the box here): 1. Re-stripe the express lanes to 3 lanes from Potomac Mills to Springfield. 2. Make HOV violation prohibitively expensive (i.e. loss of license as soon as possible in the progression of sequential violations). 3. Extend the express lanes to Fredericksburg. 4. Build an I-95 bypass from the New Jersey state line to Richmond, with no off-ramps, to off-load a lot of the thru traffic (18-wheelers and tourists) (I know, nobody in MD or VA will want to pay, even though it would solve all their commuting problems). 5. Extend HOV hours on the express lanes to reflect the actual "rush hour."
And finally, don't engage NoSUV in discussion. He or she argues from a position of ignorance and denial, and is not capable of evaluating the validity of his or her argument.
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Posted By: SpongeBob
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 9:46am
These are all valid ideas, worthy of discussion, SlugJo, and raymond is correct about the in/out commute problem. Remember when the Post wrote that, per capita, we are about six bridges short in this area? We funnel all the local traffic into four crossings and all the long-distance traffic onto two. Bottlenecks.
I'm a big fan of an eastern bypass and I'd like to see the carpool lanes extended to F'burg. I think the fines could be higher, but they did just raise them.
As for the hours being extended... we've never had a thread on that, to my knowledge. Maybe we should. [;)]
NoSUV is boring to debate because he really offers no challenge. I just don't agree with the philosophy of letting morons air their views uncontested.
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Posted By: NoSUV
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 12:32pm
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Which of you has written to your delegate to recommend the bypass? Or are you hoping he will figure it out on his own? Make sure you tell him to increase your taxes appropriately.
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Posted By: SpongeBob
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 3:14pm
Actually, I talked to Jeff Frederick about the fabled Eastern Bypass in person last summer, but only briefly. The Bypass is not my idea, of course -- it has been around for decades. And my descendants will eventually drive (or hover) on it.
Is there a problem with paying into the social pot to get some things done that none of us could do individually?
Long ago, your ancestors joined their neighbors to build small bridges to make it easier to get their goods to market.
We do it still. And ungrateful twits have been dragged along by the ears, whining and mewing, the whole way. Self-interested anti-social types are merely an annoying drag on the momentum of the rest of us.
But we'll let you use the fruits of our labors.
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Posted By: NoSUV
Date Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 3:53pm
Sponge - most of the activity to which you refer came from public involvement with government activity. If you don't get involved with the government, you deserve the activity you get.
Frederick is one of the delegates refusing to come up with funding for a transportation plan. He must secretly want the private enterprise to bail us out.
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Posted By: SpongeBob
Date Posted: 22 Sep 2006 at 9:51am
I never said Jeff Frederick actually listened to me [:D] -- who listens to a cartoon sponge, for cripes sake?
Seems to me none of the state delegates CAN do anything. JF is just like the rest, only more so. Having met him, though, I doubt he harbors secret thoughts about anything.
And of COURSE what I am referring to is government, you silly. Government is The People getting together to do things. It is the ultimate social organization. That is exactly what I was describing. Glad you got it.
This thread has gone far agley.
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