we must rely on private companies to pick up the slack at a higher price.  It is selling off our infrastructure at below market prices to private entities.  It is having private companies do what the government of Virginia could do itself.  Or maybe Virginia can't because our politicians lack the willpower to make tough decisions.  They would rather rely on a private entities to do all this for them.  

Could a private entity go out into the market and get financing at the same low rates as these government backed loans they will be using?  I think not.  And will all of this toll revenue made from congestion pricing go back into state coffers?  Nope, rather into the hands of private investors.

Northern Virginians don't care though.  Because the government of Virginia has failed to do its job for so long, Northern Virginians are willing to take crumbs from the master's table at this point.  They don't care about the details.  They don't care that it will be an 80 year concession with non-compete clauses.  They don't care that all those toll revenues they will be paying will not be going to help ease traffic congestion in the region but rather to wealthy individuals in Las Colinas, Texas and Sydney, Australia.

That's my general feeling about the HOT lanes and the Wiehle (er, Dulles) rail project.  Whether or not either are good for the region, they're both being forced through - and the ones behind the push aren't really looking out for our best interest.  Even in the meeting last April I got the feeling that the public comment session was just that, a chance to get your comments on the record.  But the comments wouldn't play any role in the outcome -  the final decision to go forward was made long before.

As for the HOT lanes, I haven't seen that much has changed - although there was an interesting article in the Post a number of months back which described how they hope to determine how many people are in a vehicle.  Something about infrared sensors and reflective properties of human skin.  Might work, might not.  If it doesn't, the police who will be monitoring activity will probably be very busy.

The worst part is that this is a very long term commitment, and if we find out that it isn't going too well, or we'd be better off with some alternative, we're stuck.  We're selling part of our public highway system to private interests simply because our political leadership can't find a way to fund road projects.  That's pathetic.

Well, it's going forward.  No surprise, the fix was in long ago.  So here's to hoping we don't get screwed - like what's starting to happen with the Greenway, another public/private road partnership.

All the places that have given into this so far like Chicago and Indiana are very sorry they did.  But they are SOL because they signed agreements that span generations.  Now others' experience with this is not necessarily indicative of what our experience will be, but it doesn't bode well.

The sad thing is that in 1995 when the Public-Private Transportation Act came up, from which these HOT lanes slithered out of, the Democratic controlled General Assembly passed it close to unanimously.  There was only one dissenting voice in the House.  But I am sure it sounded great, something like: "Money to solve Virginia's transportation woes without having to raise taxes!  Whopee!  And by the time this pisses off voters, we'll be long gone!"

It has created the world's largest gate-community - you've got to be able to afford the toll to work in D.C. and live out there.

Why do you keep getting stuck with the bill, in the current case, $409 Million - sounds more like corporate welfare than free-enterprise.

Eric and I from the Inside Scoop team taped this seminar on May 22 last spring..... it has a lot of good information and a Q&A session that makes it take and hour and twenty seven minutes...... Those that want to get a better handle on the issues and facts should find this interesting....

I hope this is useful, we are trying to capture as much of these kinds of sessions in the future for those of you who can only attend electronically......

Your feedback will help us make decisions on whether to spend the effort.... :)

n/t

The "public forum" I attended at Edison HS, did not allow the public to comment or ask questions in front of the group and people were confined to speaking one-on-one with the uninformed officials.

I tried pressing the officials to answer why the poor should be treated as second-class citizens on their public road, or why their time with their families at the end of a long work-day should be lessened while the richer should be able to have more free-time with their children.  Of course there was no answer, but what should I expect.

Linda Smyth's staff made sure there was significant Q&A at this session and she herself started it off to facilitate the interaction..... Eric can corect me if he likes, but my impression after having watched this several times while cleaning it up during the video edit, Smyth made sure there were real subject matter experts attending.... not everyboby liked their answers as you will see if you watch this, but at least they answered a lot more than I saw before this one and actually since...... the Smyth staff then distributed this in DVD format to several constituents who requested it... I know because I made the copies for them at their request over the last 6 months....

We were absolutely cut-off from any questions and were directed to the back room (it was very goolish).    

about the experts being there or that the public was allowed both questions and comment.  I suppose credit should be given for allowing that to happen since it doesn't always.

But the overall impression I got was that the HOT lanes were a done deal and the comments and questions session was simply checking boxes off the to-do list for a major project.  They may show up in a report somewhere but I doubt the issues brought up during the meeting were ever seriously considered as part of a decision making process.

They needed to show they "listened" to the public, albeit after the fact.

Was this the conference that Smyth pulled together during her election in the primary?  

We (at Channel 10 Fairfax Public Access) had been requested to have a crew there to tape the Transpo Seminar almost two and half month's earlier, long before the controversy started, but it was exactly the night before the League Of Women Voters Debate In Falls Church. The county run TV station (Channel 16) doesn't do many "Field Shoots" like we do and since we had all the equipment already reserved for the Transpo Seminar, it was easy for us to use the same digital cameras for the primary debate the following night as well. The "Inside Scoop Team" did both of these shows because of the political aspects. We are a partisan Team (centris-Democrats), but we do non-partisan non-content-edited complete production, (No Excerpts) which is why the League has always trusted us. Believe it or not, it has worked out politically better that way and we even get regular and numerous emails/Thank-You notes from the candidates from both sides thanking us for being so "even handed", but it takes the edge off for our crew of un-paid volunteers. Whether it be for primaries or general elections no matter, we do them for free as partisans. The paid staff does non-partisan only but always for at least a minimum fee.

So, Virginia legistators, unwilling to raise taxes to build badly needed roads, institute another hair-brained scheme to "miss"-use our pathetically few traffic arteries (none of which are Virginia funded). Already I-95 and I-66 are rarely free-flowing most hours of the day and night.  

You may be getting excited by this playing-around-the-edges, but this is very sad.  

Who knows if no-tax legislators can ever be defeated. House Republicans elected Mr. Bill once more as their obstructor-in-chief.  Remember he maintains that his Stafford constitutients never complain about the traffic or at least not to him directly...

I predict that there will be little joy in Mudville when this nonsense goes into operation. Reference the abusive driver fees for similar success stories.  

... it expands to fill all available space.

Even at maximum efficiency, two lanes of highway can only carry about 3500 cars an hour. So how long will it take the HOT Lanes to fill up? Three months? Six? Then we'll have 12 congested lanes instead of 8 congested lanes. Except 4 of them will cost extra. Sounds great.

The bottom line is that there are too many people who live way too far from where they work. We have no regional plan to change that pattern and no regional plan to meet public transportation needs. Instead we get Beltway band-aids while the real problem we're trying to cover up just gets worse and worse.

I think it's time to either primary some of our elected officials who continually forget who supports them or start a third party.  And if you've ever read my comments or posts before, you'd know, I'm the last person to suggest this.

I've defended a lot because legitimately, the Dems both in Congress and at the state level did not have the votes to do a lot of what they had promised to do.

But when will they stop constantly selling us out to business interests?  On HOT lanes, I did not see or hear one Democrat get up and oppose it.  But I've heard from many of their constituents - and not just in the blogosphere but among my neignbors and on bus lines and slug lines - who are opposed to this.

When do the people who elect these representatives get their voices heard on the best way to improve their lives? And when do our elected representatives start to put their constituents before their big business donors?

I'm all for primaries, no matter who is running or how much people like them.  It gives us a chance to deal with a questionable politician in-house.  The general in November is too late because the Republican is almost always worse - so you get a choice of bad or worse.

As for a third party...  that would be the best option, but as we're all painfully aware, it'll be very difficult if not impossible to get there from here.

Go to VPAP and look at all the policians from both parties who took money from the company building the HOT Lanes.  This is a whole-sale sell off of our assets, and is no worse than school vouchers or having special library cards for the rich.  

This is a great case of government copping out, and policians being bought out - a terrible combination.  It's B.S.

Just check out Connolly's campaign donation record around April 2007.  He was given a chunk of $$$.

There is alot of ignorance floating around this issue

1.  The HOT lanes will always be uncongested

2.  The HOT lanes are free for carpoolers and buses

3.  This is arguably the cheapest and fastest way to add capacity to an extremely congested area

This is a great day

The HOT lanes will always be uncongested!  Never a traffic jam!  Why stop there?  Come on, promise they'll get me from Springfield to Bethesda in 15 seconds!

or that the cost of a trip in five years will be so expensive that no one will be on the damn road.

Despite my grousing, I haven't come out completely against the HOT lanes.  I was and am skeptical, however.  And wary of such a very long term joint public/private partnership.

To your points:
1. That's not always going to be true because accidents and breakdowns happen.  That'll clog up the HOT lanes from time to time.  I know, it's a minor point, but don't expect them to always be clear.  This also assumes that they will turn away people once the lanes fill up - no matter the price.  They may say this, but when they're looking at maximum profit for letting cars in, they may fudge a little and over pack their lanes - causing slow downs.

2. True.  They better be free for buses and public transportation.  As for carpoolers, it's HOV3.  Not bad but not good.  Even two people commuting in a car is a good thing - so from a public service point of view HOV2 should be included.  But from the "private" part of this partnership, HOV2 would cost them money and they're not going to allow it to happen.

3. Cheapest in the short term, possibly expensive for us in the long run.  Think about it: why would a private company invest billions of dollars and seek out a decades long commitment?  Because they see a profit in it.  Otherwise they wouldn't do it.  IMO, The public transportation grid is not something that should be "making a profit" - it's paid for by all and should simply try to break even.  So when they're running part of the transportation grid at a profit, someone is paying more than they have to.   Now here's where it all comes together and one of the reasons why I'm neither completely for or against it.  The companies say that only those who choose to use their lanes will pay more - not a bad argument.  But this is where I have great skepticism - will it really work as advertised?  If so, maybe it's a good idea.  But there are so many unknowns that can come into play that could mess up this system, we're looking at real potential for trouble.  And if it goes south, who will get stuck holding the bag?  I guarantee you the tax payers will get stuck if that happens - and we'll end up paying much more in the long run than if we were to pony up the funding right now.

What's not included in your extremely brief argument are some of the other factors.  

Things like the "Lexus Lane" issue.  Every so often everyone would use the HOT lanes - if you have to get somewhere fast you're will to pay whatever it costs.  But for day-to-day commuting, only the rich will be able to spend $20 per day EXTRA.  The American way?  Maybe, but I'd rather not have my public government getting involved in this sort of catering to the rich.

There's the question of how well it will really work.  There will be distinct exit points to this system - what happens then?  Once you're out of their lanes you're back in gridlock.  One of situations that cause gridlock is when two road merge - so while you'll have saved time on the highway there will be an ugly backup when the lanes meet back up.  

And just how much traffic will be pulled from the free lanes during rush hour?  Obviously some, but will it be enough to make a long term commitment worth it?  Keep in mind that we're not adding 2 whole lanes to the beltway - once they hit a certain capacity no more traffic will leave the free lanes.  In other words, if we had 6 full lanes a busy commute might mean an average speed of 30 mph.  However, if 2 of lanes are restricted many more cars will end up on the other 4 lanes, pushing the average speed down to say 20 mph.  20 mph is better than the current 5 mph, but if it were a public project the overall average speed would be higher than with the limited HOT lanes solution.  Ok, I just made up those numbers because I don't know of a source that has accurately and unbiasedly studied the real effects.  But I am certain that we will see an effect like this - with a slower average commute on 4 public + 2 HOT lanes versus 6 public lanes.  The key question being how much of a difference.

Bottomline, if you're not at least skeptical, especially given how some recent public/private deals have gone down recently, you're not thinking about it enough.  It might work - I'm not saying it won't.  But I've got a healthy dose of skepticism about this one.

Eric is the brains behind this operation :-)

If you ever get that third party idea off the ground let me know

On to your points

The lexus lane issue is much weaker (stick with me) because there is an easy way around it (carpool or take the bus) all those currently using HOV will not be negatively effected by HOT.  In fact I am suprised some more enviromentalists aren't coming on board.  We are penalizing single drivers (good thing) and incentivizng people to carpool and use mass transit (yeah enviroment)

The exit point issue is a legitamate concern especially at the American Legion Bridge (yikes) but this would be an issue regardless if we had HOT lanes or added more regular highway lanes.  The Tysons taskforce officially knows this is coming and should plan the street layout system accordingly.

In terms of net effect of removing cars (remember there is currently no HOV on the beltway so its almost all single drivers) its a win win with the new bus initatives looking espeically promising. Imagine a traffic free bus that gets you to Tysons Corner.  The Pentagon and Crystal City models can be replicated with great success here.

In closing of course there are some issues but I think looking at costs, time to build, improvement to congestion, and enviroment this is the best option.

Cheers

With the price of metro to Dulles being over 5 billion the likelyhood of adding a metro ring along the beltway before 2050 is highly unlikely.

This new HOT lane is envisioned as a transit corridor and when Maryland gets its act together with their HOT lanes you will be able to have a bus system that serves at the metro ring that is desperately needed to fully envision the true power of mass transit and metro  

If we combine the HOT lanes with a drastically improved bus system, we'd greatly improve the value of the HOT lanes.  That's a big IF, because right now the powers that be have a bug up their collective ass about this Rail to Wiehle project - meaning no new bus system, meaning the HOT lanes won't really be put to good use by the public transportation system, meaning I'm still highly skeptical of them.

Plus, there's probably some gotcha in the contract that says if a certain percentage of buses use the HOT lanes, the government has to pay.

On point 1, you point this out a little later, but I think it should be stressed.  These projects don't eliminate the current bottlenecks in the system.  And just as the 14th St bridge slows down the 395 HOV lanes; so too will the 66 interchange and the two bridges slow the HOT lanes.  If traffic is backing up into the HOT lanes, it is hard to see how congestion pricing remedies that.

On point 2, it is not free access.  If HOV usage is more than a set amount (24%), the state has to pay the concession company for lost toll revenue.

On point 3, there is no reason the state couldn't have used asset backed securities (i.e. toll revenue bond similar to how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac repackage mortgages to sell) to finance this project along with loans and grants from the Federal Highway Administration.  The fed component is at the lowest interest rate obtainable.  And there is no reason to think that the toll revenue bonds would have an interest any higher than what Fluor can get in terms of financing.  It is hard to say even in the short term that this was the cheapest option.  

I must have missed that #2 point somewhere along the way.  If true, this is a disincentive for the government to encourage carpooling.  I suppose that's a reason why the government agreed to HOV3 - less likely that they'll hit some magic number and have to pay.   Geez, at this rate the government is going to guarantee a profit for these companies no matter what.  No risk for the companies - great deal if you can get it.

This doesn't help my already healthy dose of skepticism...

It is in the Risk & Reward Sharing Memo.  It was all part of the original business terms; they have refined it somewhat.  If HOV usage exceeds 24%, the state will pick up 70% of the revenue impact for the fist 40 years.  And since the concession company sets the tolls, they essentially determine what the revenue impact is.

Del. Paul Nichols proposes banning HOT lanes on I-95.