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July 25, 2007 12:35 am

KEEP YOUR SUITS on, com- muters, for a couple of more hours on either Thursday night or Monday night: State transportation officials would like to talk to you.

Those officials are hosting public-information meetings on the Interstate 95 High Occupancy Toll lanes project. The Thursday night meeting is at the Wingate Inn in southern Stafford County beginning at 7. The Monday meeting is also at 7 p.m. at the Spotsylvania County School Administrative Services Building across from Massaponax High School.

What's in it for you? Information and the chance to let government nabobs know that the public cares about transportation-improvement projects--and how tax dollars are being spent.

The I-95 project is a public-private partnership between the Virginia Department of Transportation and Fluor-Transurban, a private firm. Originally, the idea was to improve the entire stretch of I-95 between the 14th Street Bridge in Washington and Massaponax. Now, however, the project has been split into halves.

The northern segment will convert the existing HOV lanes into HOT lanes, essentially re-striping asphalt to add one more lane. The southern stretch will extent two HOT lanes all the way down to Massaponax.

George Mason University estimates that traffic congestion costs the Northern Virginia economy $5.5 billion a year in lost productivity, obstructed deliveries, excess fuel usage, and so on. That doesn't even include the loss of quality of life suffered by travelers stuck in abysmal congestion.

The price tag put on the 55-mile improvement project--$1 billion--is high, but something must be done to get our major artery flowing again. The HOT lanes, which would be free to buses and carpools of three or more, would feature variable pricing, allowing toll-lane operators to offer incentives for off-peak travel. Shuffling more cars into the HOT lanes would help regular-lane drivers, and toll revenue will add to state transportation coffers.

In 2006, the eyebrows of local officials were raised when a VDOT manager declined to guarantee that the southern part of the project would, indeed, be built. After all, the northern part is relatively easy, and once money starts flowing in, the pressure to complete the improve- ment on the entire 55-mile stretch diminishes.

But without the southern part of the project, one local official quipped, the HOT lanes would be only lukewarm. Fredericksburg-area commuters need the lower section to relieve congestion in this area. Now's the time to speak up--because state transportation officials are ready to listen.