By KELLY HANNON
The newest Honda Civic is 5 feet 9 inches wide. A 2009 Toyota Sienna minivan is 6 feet 4 inches wide. A new Ford F-150 pickup is 6 feet 5 inches wide.
All would fit neatly inside an 11-foot-wide travel lane on Interstate 95.
But is that lane wide enough to carry buses?
Several people asked that question last night at a public hearing for a proposed toll lane project on I-95/395 from the Pentagon to Garrisonville Road.
Squeezing three lanes into the existing median space will require shrinking some lanes to a width of 11 feet for a three-mile stretch.
The Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission runs commuter buses in the current HOV lanes. PRTC's OmniRide and Metro Direct buses are all 8 feet 5 inches wide.
From Eads Street at the Pentagon to Shirlington, a distance of three miles, each toll lane would be 11 feet wide, with a variable shoulder on one side of 2 feet to 9 feet and another shoulder ranging from 8 feet to 9 feet.
Sen. George Barker, D-Prince William, told the audience at Potomac High School in Dumfries that transportation commissions in Northern Virginia have told him they are concerned about safety.
Barker said the narrower lanes are "a disaster waiting to happen."
Most toll lanes would be wider than 11 feet. From Shirlington to the Prince William Parkway, a distance of 17 miles, a 12-foot center lane will be flanked by two 11-foot lanes. A 10-foot shoulder would be on the right, and a 12.5-foot shoulder on the left.
All toll lanes from the Prince William Parkway to Garrisonville Road would be 12 feet wide, with 12-foot shoulders on both sides.
Two companies are working with the Virginia Department of Transportation to determine if they can convert the two High Occupancy Vehicle lanes running along the center of I-95 into three toll lanes over a distance of 28 miles.
A later phase of the project would build two new toll lanes another 28 miles south to Spotsylvania.
To help ease afternoon traffic at the Garrisonville Road exit, one toll lane will be built early in the Fredericksburg area. A 9-mile, single-lane extension will be built from Dumfries to Exit 143 as part of the project's northern section.
Fluor Inc. and Transurban USA, the two companies trying to build the lanes, say 19 emergency pull-off areas are planned between the Pentagon and Garrisonville.
Fluor-Transurban will pay private emergency responders 24 hours a day to clear crashes and help disabled vehicles.
Fluor-Transurban's proposal to build toll lanes on I-95/395 was accepted by VDOT in 2005.
The parties have been working together since then on environmental tests, public hearings, and toll and traffic studies. Fluor-Transurban is already building 14 miles of toll lanes on the Capitol Beltway.
Construction on the I-95/395 lanes cannot start until VDOT chooses to sign a financial agreement with Fluor-Transurban.
If the state decides to pursue the project, that agreement could be signed by late summer.
The southern section of the HOT lanes project, from Dumfries to Massaponax, is currently under environmental review. A financial agreement on the southern section is not planned before late 2010, pushing construction until late 2010 or 2011.
Other comments at the public hearing centered around toll prices and traffic.
Fluor-Transurban must set tolls at prices that keep traffic flowing at a minimum of 45 mph, 90 percent of the time.
Vehicles with three occupants or more can always drive in the toll lanes for free. But vehicles with one or two occupants will pay a toll. Hybrid vehicles will be required to have three occupants, or pay a toll.
VDOT officials emphasized that the policy of HOV will remain.
"Sluggers and transit users will not be affected and will not have to pay a toll," said Ronaldo Nicholson, VDOT regional transportation program director.
Fluor-Transurban has estimated toll prices could reach $1 a mile at rush hour.
Toll lanes will be broken into segments, with electronic signs displaying the per-mile toll to travel in a section of road. Drivers can choose to pay the toll and keep driving, or exit into general lanes.
Bob Leipold has been slugging into downtown Washington from Potomac Mills for 14 years. Of his fellow slugs he said, "I have yet to meet a single one that thinks going to a toll road is better then expanding ridesharing."
He's concerned slugging will be affected decades from now, as the population in Northern Virginia grows.
If toll lanes are ever too congested for traffic to flow at rush hour, who will be asked to step out? he asked. "Are they going to let the unpaying members of the public use the lanes first? Or are they going to let the paying cars use the lanes first?" Leipold said.
Kelly Hannon: 540/374-5436
Email: khannon@freelancestar.com
| Toll lanes on I-95 will come with money for public transit along the interstate-- $195 million, according to project officials.
Part of that money will pay to build 3,000 commuter parking spaces along I-95, including lots in the Fredericksburg area. A study has shown 1,050 spaces would be built in the Garrisonville Road area, and another 300 spaces in the Massaponax area. That study showed another 3,750 spaces are needed in the I-95 corridor, beyond what Fluor-Transurban would build initially with the $195 million. --Kelly Hannon |