A plan to add $100 million of transit upgrades to a major HOT lanes project along Interstate 95 has been scrapped, with Virginia officials slashing plans to add four bus rapid transit stations, create new bus routes, and upgrade Metro and Virginia Railway Express facilities. The resulting project is expected to lead to more congestion inside the Beltway, according to a state report. And now the state will pay about $100 million for four parking lots and a ramp on what’s left of the once-touted private-public partnership to build the high-occupancy toll lanes.
The project was intended to have private developers pay to build and operate lanes that allow vehicles with multiple passengers to ride for free like existing high-occupancy vehicle lanes, but also let solo drivers use the lanes for a fee.
Source: VDOT Secretary Sean Connaughton
| I-95/I-395 HOT Lane project |
| • Construction begins late 2012 |
| • Finish in 2014 or 2015 |
The move comes as the state has truncated its plans for HOT lanes on the I-95/Interstate 395 corridor after an 18-month lawsuit from Arlington County over the project.
“It wasn’t the state’s choice. It was the choice of Arlington County to cut it off inside the Beltway,” Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told The Washington Examiner.
Arlington County Board Chairman Christopher Zimmerman denied that his city’s lawsuit played a role, saying the project faltered before the suit. He said the project initially was presented as a bus and HOT lane project with private dollars funding the bus rapid transit component.
“There was skepticism all along that we’d see that money,” Zimmerman said. “Now we know we won’t.”
In February, the state pulled its plans to add about six miles of HOT lanes on I-395 inside the Capital Beltway in Alexandria and Arlington County.
But cutting that meant losing the highest-volume and highest-revenue-producing portion of the toll road project, Connaughton said.
“We’ve lost the gold mine and we’re left with the shaft,” Connaughton said.
The current plan instead would add HOT lanes from Garrisonville Road in Stafford County to Edsall Road in Fairfax County and link them to the Capital Beltway HOT lanes.
Connaughton said the state has committed about $100 million to build four park-and-ride lots in Prince William, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties plus build an HOV ramp onto Seminary Road to help ease congestion to the Mark Center, which is expected to add about 6,400 workers as part of the Defense Department’s Base Realignment and Closure moves.
