Well, if we widen the American Legion bridge, then we have to widen the Beltway on the other side of the bridge, don't we? And what about other roads that connect to the widened Beltway like I395 and I270? Won't we have to widen those, too?

mention that Maryland is in the early stages of looking at a HOT lane connection on their side.  If they're smart they'll wait to see how well HOT lanes work over here before diving in.  But that would mean waiting 20+ years before it's all working.

... yet Metro has to go begging for funds?

who's noticed there's this big freakin' wet thing at the end of the road called a river.  

This is the same rehash of the same argument I've been hearing for all 50 years of my life in Northern Virginia.  Everything was supposed to be solved by the Beltway, and then it was going to be solved by I-66, and then it was going to be solved by the never-built Three Sisters Bridge, and then it was going to be solved by blah, blah, blah ...

There is just no way around the fact that we've got a river with only a few methods of ingress and egress from DC and Maryland, and absent deciding to pave over the whole river and cut wide swaths through DC to accommodate our travel hungry hordes free flow of traffic just ain't gonna happen.

If you want to add a lane to I66, unless you want a huge bottleneck, you need to completely reconfigure the Rosslyn tunnel at a huge cost (I've heard over $1 billion).

Cost per mile is locked in once you enter the HOT Lane

GreenMiles its not like mass transit is some magic silver bullet that doesn't cost as much either.  Fixing Rosslyn Tunnel for example would cost 3-5 times as much vs adding one lane on I-66.

To the larger point Its going to take a balance of additional lane capacity for cars, more tracks for rail, more buses and maybe even ferries to keep up with the population growth in this area

The real vision of the HOT lanes are actually the beginnings of Bus Rapid Transit when you think about it.  fredricksburg-dc 95/395 is already serviced by BRT.  These new hot lanes will provide an additional link to Tysons Corner.  Eventually once Marland gets involved there will finally be a reliable and cost effective and timely mass transit option to get from Maryland to Virginia at a significant cost savings over building a metro link.

It's sure going to be very interesting to see how the dynamic plays out when the prices hit the steep part of the cost curve.  But at least you're locked in once you hit the sensor.

I agree completely that the HOT lanes could be BRT friendly - but I don't think much real consideration, much less real action, has happened in that direction.  It's just a theoretical benefit right now.  I could become much less cynical about these HOT lanes if there was significant effort put into making BRT use a reality.

HOT lane are a benefit for the rich and the weak politicians who love the campaign contributions from the private builders and managers of the roads - Dem.s and Rep.s alike.

One very annoying problem in the last WaPo article that went unnoticed was that if more than 27% of the HOT lane drivers access the roads via car-pooling (i.e., 3 or more people can ride free), the state will directly reimburse the foreign management company for their lost revenues - in other words, the state has a fiscal incentive to discourage car-poolers on the HOT lanes.

This is nuts but our politicians have sold us out.

There will be bottlenecks getting on and off of the HOT lanes no matter who they try to tell us differently. And there will be greatly increased cut through traffic in your neighborhood as cars avoid the beltway en route to Tysons Corner.

Believe me I was livid when I investigated the HOT lanes proposal and saw that the public meetings were only to present a done deal, not to listen to the public's valid concerns.

I'm not just some NIMBY. I've lived in Fairfax all my life and know these HOT lanes will be as bad for Fairfax as the original I-95 proposal that went through DC that was mercifully stopped in the 60s.

What a sham and a shame.

And will taxpayers be paying the private company that builds them?

If so, isn't it outrageous that your tax money, and mine, will go to fund lanes that we will not be able to use if we can't afford to pay extra?

And if they float a bond for it, what happens if they don't earn enough revenue from the tolls to pay back the debt?  Are taxpayers then stuck paying back the money, while still not being able to use the lanes without paying once again?

If so, why are we all being asked to pay for something that only a privileged few will be able to afford to use?  And why is anybody being asked to be pay double so a private company can make the profit?

And I think somebody said something about a foreign company managing the tolls.  If that's true, why is a company that is not from the U.S., and not from Virginia, being utilized?

And finally, will this be competitively bid?

It seems like there are far too many unanswered questions and too many valid objections to this for our politicians to simply proceed.  

the funds to build the HOT lanes come entirely from the private companies.  That's supposedly what's in it for the public - we get new roads at no cost.  The private companies take a risk by spending big $$$ on infrastructure and hope to regain their investment through decades of tolls.

But this is another area where I'm skeptical - will it really end up like this?  I suspect that we'll end up paying.  And probably in more ways than one.  Take MattH's point above: if HOV3 use goes over a certain percentage the state will have to reimburse the private companies for lost revenue!!!!   So much for the risk/reward model - there's not much risk with guaranteed revenues.  And so much for our tax dollars not feeding this venture.

I don't know about the competitive bidding part.  But at this point the private companies are locked in.

But I agree with you.  If the companies are reimbursed for revenue lost because of car pools, they aren't taking much risk.  The taxpayers are.  

And if the state has to pay for the car poolers, then they have an incentive to discourage car pooling.  Will they, then, close down slug lines, those informal car pool lines, unique to Northern Virginia, that spring up at bus stops like the Pentagon and Rolling Valley, etc., to discourage HOV use?

Further, will the average citizen sit in traffic for twice as long while the rich whizz by?

Also, if a private company is building it and running it, what accountability factors might be in the mix?  This seems a lot like our local government is abdicating both its responsibility and its authority.

This is exactly the kind of market-based reductionism run amok that needs to be challenged. Roads should be there to benefit all the citizens.  Our infrastructure shouldn't be put up for sale to the highest bidder.

To add gas to this fire, the private companies are not really taking much of a risk.  The state (we) are financing the costs for the private companies at below market interest rates.

I would agree that this is capitalism run amok, but it's worse - in a pure, free-enterpise system, no private company would ever build and manage such a project.  

What we have is the worst of both worlds.  What's public needs to remain public, and private remain private.  This is our Haliburton.