By Gary Richards
Mercury News
Article Launched: 09/13/2007 01:31:58 AM PDT
We all know that the Highway 101 commute in and out of Silicon Valley can be pure torture, but a fix is in the works, a fix with a price - if you're willing to pay it, that is.
Massive plans are moving ahead to transform 101 and two other vital South Bay freeways with features never before seen in the region: toll roads and, on 101 between Morgan Hill and Redwood City, a second carpool lane.
That's right, a second carpool lane each way.
The trick? Solo drivers would be able to pay their way into the lanes, skirting backups and, hopefully, easing traffic.
The Valley Transportation Authority will report to its board later this year about its strategy to widen 101 and convert that freeway and Highway 85 into roads that offer tolling.
Preliminary engineering studies could be finished in a year, giving a better sense of how much the project would cost and when work might begin. But the VTA, taking advantage of federal incentives that favor tolling projects, appears serious about moving forward, viewing toll lanes as perhaps the most effective way to raise money while also battling traffic that's expected to surge dramatically in the next two decades.
If approved, the South Bay toll lanes wouldn't be the first in the Bay Area. By 2009, work should be under way to convert the carpool lane on southbound Interstate 680 down the Sunol Grade into a toll lane. And similar plans are in the offing for I-580 around Dublin and on Doyle Drive, near the Golden Gate Bridge. Regional planners also have their eyes on I-880 from Oakland to Milpitas along with 101 in the North Bay.
The toll lanes, technically called High Occupancy Toll or HOT lanes, are common in Southern California and throughout the country.
FasTrak transponders
They work like this: Carpoolers ride free, but solo drivers might, as in the case of I-680, pay as little as $1 to as much as $7, based on time of day and traffic conditions, to jump in and get around backed-up traffic. Fees would be collected with FasTrak transponders and drivers would be able to enter and exit toll lanes only at certain locations. There would be no toll booths.
If a driver has a carpool partner along, all he needs to do is put the FasTrak transponder in the glove compartment and he avoids a toll and rides free.
Installing more HOT lanes has increasingly become a priority for the federal Department of Transportation, which recently released $1.2 billion to agencies across the country willing to charge tolls. The push has gained further momentum in the wake of last month's tragedy in Minnesota, where an Interstate 35 bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed.
The struggle to raise money to clean up that disaster has highlighted a huge shortfall in federal highway money - as much as $4 billion over the next three years. If that deficit is not covered, California, for example, faces losing $1.35 billion during that period.
"The feds are looking for dramatic, dynamic ways to get big projects moving," said John Ristow, who is overseeing the VTA's toll plan for 85 and 101. "The huge piece is there had to be tolling involved. You see that in Seattle, in New York and with Doyle Drive. That is where the trend is moving both on the federal and state level in a major way."
HOT lanes have been in use on Route 91 between Orange and Riverside counties and along Interstate 15 north of San Diego for more than a decade. But they are new to the Bay Area and the focus is on I-680 and then 85 and 101.
Double carpool lanes
Adding another carpool lane up and down 101 is the most intriguing improvement. No other Bay Area freeway has double carpool lanes. The cost could be at least $500,000 a mile on each direction of the 40-mile stretch, but probably will be much higher. The VTA's goal is to finish studies next year and, if federal money is available, be in position to put in a serious bid.
"If we want people to buy their way in, one option that could really sell that concept is having two carpool lanes each way," Ristow said. "That would be a big incentive."
Bob Poole, head of the Southern California think tank called the Reason Foundation, says the two-carpool lane approach on 101 would be wise, as it could keep tolls low and entice more single drivers to use those lanes without gumming up the works for carpoolers.
Poole says the experience on Highway 91 and I-15 is that drivers are willing to bypass congestion, and that it's not just the well-off who can better afford a daily driving fee.
"Most users are people who choose the HOT lane once or twice a week," Poole said, "for trips when paying the toll is better than being late to pick up the kid from day care, to avoid being late to work for the Nth time, to catch a plane, to meet an important client, to get in one more electrician appointment."
HOT lanes, he added, also are working in Denver, Houston, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City - "a pretty wide range of communities."
As for drivers, are they willing to pony up for what is now a free ride, albeit a slow one many days? A survey by the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency indicated yes - at least on I-680.
But on 101? No way, said Tom Santos, who drives from San Jose to Mountain View.
"I'm not paying a toll," he said. "I do like widening 101, but can't they come up with a better plan?"
Then there's Stanley Clancy, a Los Banos-to-San Jose commuter who calls a toll "reasonable" and would be willing to pay if the lane started farther south, in Gilroy, where he gets stuck each day.
"That would be about half of my commute," he said, noting that a 90-minute drive when he moved to the Central Valley nine years ago has become a 2 1/2-hour odyssey this year.
"The backups that are occurring going through Gilroy in both the morning and evening commutes are getting bad and are only going to get worse."
Contact Gary Richards at mrroadshow@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5335