
$30 Toll to Use Express Lanes - tomohawk
http://www.fox5dc.com/news/local-news/227343072-story
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qntty
Seems like an example of supply and demand working as intended.

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SamBam
Yup. The inheritors of wealth and other rich people get to ride fast on
nearly-empty roads, and the rest of the population has to be crammed onto
fewer, slower roads, causing a positive feedback loop.

Works just as intended, provided you're one of the ones who can afford it.

Snark aside, "supply and demand" fails to fairly set price when the demand is
inelastic -- e.g. when people need to drive home in the snow after work, and
there are limited other options. As for the toll road being built "for that
purpose," remember when the government was supposed to build roads for all it
citizens, not just those who could afford it?

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denzil_correa
> Snark aside, "supply and demand" fails to fairly set price when the demand
> is inelastic

I wish more people could peek under this hood rather than simply posthoc
rationalize every price increase with "demand-supply" theory. For the concept
to work, you need to have many things in "control". Therefore, I simply ask
everyone who uses that argument to justify me that price that they
rationalize. In other words, you can use the "demand-supply" argument for any
price $60, or $100. How is $30 the actual price that demand-supply has set?

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yeldarb
The point of the supply/demand curve is that there is a price at which revenue
is optimized.

In this case $30 is the price they've determined they will make the most
money. Charge more and too many customers will drop out to justify the
increase. Charge less and you're leaving money on the table.

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SamBam
> where they've determined they will make the most money

But is that supposed to be the goal of surge-pricing on a public, state-built
road? Or is it supposed to be about easing congestion?

If the aim of the government was to always find the price at which they could
make the most money possible, we'd live in a very different place.

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nommm-nommm
The road in question isn't really a public, state-built road.

[https://www.expresslanes.com/project-
background](https://www.expresslanes.com/project-background)

> In 2007, VDOT finalized a long-term partnership agreement with Capital
> Beltway Express, LLC – a consortium led by Transurban that would design,
> build, operate, finance and maintain the $2 billion HOT lanes project.
> Transurban and its partners provided a substantial upfront equity commitment
> to help fund construction and financed the rest of the project through
> private activity bonds and a TIFIA loan. The partnership enabled Virginia to
> leverage private capital to translate every one state tax dollar into four
> dollars of transportation improvements.

>Construction, managed by Fluor-Lane, began in 2008 and the new lanes opened
for business in 2012.

>In 2014, Transurban invested an additional $280 million of equity to put the
project on solid financial footing following impacts of the global financial
crisis. The private sector has assumed the long-term financial risk for the
project, including full responsibility to pay back all project debt.

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Spooky23
The term of art is "public private partnership".

It's a ridiculous notion -- the government has the ability to raise capital
far more cheaply than private capital markets, and revenue from toll-roads is
one of the most reliable revenue streams that exist. It's not zero-risk, but
pretty close.

It's just a scheme to move debt to somebody else's books, and make more money
for various parties. It also provides fertile ground to re-direct anger from
government operational incompetence or underinvestment, like plowing in such a
way that you create miles of gridlock instead of doing things like pre-
treating the road surface to avoid plowing during peak travel times.

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j1vms
Almost before anyone cites supply/demand:

> the company (said) two salt and plow trucks were working on the southbound
> Express Lanes on I-495 and I-95, causing traffic to slow and increasing the
> toll on those lanes.

So no one was going anywhere because of salting and plowing yet the tolls were
unaffected and they increased the premium - which would have changed...
nothing.

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pavel_lishin
So the problem here is more of a faulty algorithm?

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Vivtek
Less a "faulty algorithm" and more a moral hazard. The intent of the rules is
to limit usage during periods of congestion _not_ caused by the road operators
themselves. The distinction is that human actors are not moral-free
mechanisms.

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temp246810
Yet another money grab by the government, as if the nearly 60% tax rate isn't
enough (federal, state, sales, fuel, DMV, etc).

They did this the classical way too, introduce it at ridiculously low prices
<$1 just to get the system in place and then they've wasted very little time
in raising prices.

Ive used them in the SF Bay Area and Los Angeles where they converted car pool
lanes to be express ways and carpool lanes.

It would be great if they were forced to provide evidence that they actually
work because to the casual observer they don't work.

To those arguing that driving is a privilege, supply demand etc, get off your
high horses. It's tough getting to work in these cities without a car, it
sucks seeing lanes taken away and give to the wealthy, and it sucks even more
to have the government take even more money without evidence of results.

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DanCarvajal
I live in the DC area and what people don't understand here is last year we
had a massive congestion disaster when the first snow hit during rush hour.
People were trapped on the roads for hours as the conditions got worse. I had
a coworker leave work at 4:00pm and didn't get home till 11:00.

I would have had no problems what so ever paying $30 to not be stuck in that
again. $30 less than going out to dinner here.

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ianstallings
The crazy thing is, AFAIK, it's based on real-time demand on the expressway
itself and makes it more expensive when that is more crowded. So you get to
pay more, just to drive behind other people. You'd think it would be slightly
different, where if it's clearer than the road it's bypassing and traffic on
_that_ road is really slow, then raise the price.

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dumbfounder
I take this road, and while I feel a free market is great (which this isn't,
there are only really 2 choices, my way or the highway), this is absolutely
ridiculous. The problem is if I decide to take this route I have to go out of
my way to get there. Then if I see that it's $30 I need to turn around and
backtrack for like 10 minutes to take another route.

And we aren't talking about a long stretch of road. If it was 20 miles and it
saved me an hour, awesome! We are talking about A FEW MILES and for my route
it saves about 15 minutes.

And I might even sing a different tune if EZPass wasn't such an awful system.
When you take a trip on the east coast and you forget to fill your stupid
EZPass up manually beforehand, get ready for a ton of tickets! Oh, you
remembered the morning of your trip, thank god! NOPE. F U. It takes like 2
days to process your payment.

F EZPASS AND THE HORSE IT CAME IN ON.

Not that I am mad or anything.

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moron4hire
>> and you forget to fill your stupid EZPass up manually beforehand

Why aren't you on autopay? This is a problem of your own making. I have the
same, exact EZPass you have and I never have this problem.

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dumbfounder
I'm on autopay! If you use too much in one day it hits the bottom and then
takes 2 days to process the new payment.

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moron4hire
That makes zero sense. Are you sure you're tickets weren't from speeding
through the EZPass kiosk?

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dumbfounder
I know, that's why I hate it! I am looking at one now and I see no indication
it was speeding.

I got 4 tickets when I drove up to Maine during the summer. Luckily, since it
autopayed AFTER that day driving up it was full for the ride back.

~~~
dumbfounder
Oh, you can contest the ticket, that sounds great! So you contest it, get a
confirmation email, then 30 days later they send you another bill with a late
fee. Absolutely nothing happens.

Want another awesome EZPass story? They have a version with a switch so you
can ride HOV if you have 3 people in the car in certain circumstances. So I
got one. Since I didn't actually use that feature in the first 30 or 60 days
or whatever they told me I had to send it back.

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jat255
Yeah, but the EZPass flex option is pretty clearly stated that you have to
send it back if you don't use it...

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nunez
Elastic pricing is whole point of the toll lanes. They are supposed to be
stupid expensive when traffic is heavy; otherwise, it would just be another
lane

That said, I use them all of the time during non peak hours so I can drive
75-80 without being 10+ over speed limit. (Most express lanes in the DFW are
set to 75. The express lanes in the Delmarva area are pretty lame in this
regard. They don't even give you a speed bump. It's purely a "pay to suffer
less" service.)

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flavor8
Google maps consistently attempts to route you onto these lanes if you are
travelling on the west beltway, which is annoying. They have an option to
"skip tolls", which might work but isn't the same thing -- there's a
difference between opt-in tolls and tolls that are required to use a bridge or
highway.

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dquigley
Does anyone know of other cities / areas using this type of pricing? It sounds
like this is pretty new, and I'd be interested in seeing any research /
studies on the long term impact of this kind of pricing.

I could see how it is both useful and could have a disproportionate, negative
impact on lower social-economic classes.

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felideon
I-95 in South Florida. Currently it maxes out at $10 but I heard they are
increasing it to $20.

Not sure if there has been any research, but yes I have heard on the radio how
some people are against the express lanes because it does have a negative
impact for those who can't afford it, and it's quite dangerous.[1] The latter
might be due to a bad implementation however.

[1] [https://www.kairelaw.com/car-accidents/lane-diving-
make-i-95...](https://www.kairelaw.com/car-accidents/lane-diving-
make-i-95-deadly/)

~~~
mikeash
It seems like a positive impact for people who can't afford it here in
Northern Virgina. The express lanes didn't take capacity away from the normal
lanes, but they do take away some traffic, so in theory people who don't use
them should still be better off.

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felideon
Ah, right. I think down here the problem is that the capacity for normal lanes
did get reduced.

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mikeash
Yeah, that's a substantial difference. If it's purely additive then at worst
there's some sort of opportunity cost. If they transform normal lanes into
paid lanes then it's a whole different sort of thing.

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c17r
Couple weeks back due to ice and accidents, the toll got up to $60. People
were still willing to pay.

And they are HOT-3 lanes. With the proper EZ-pass transponder and 2
passengers, you flip a switch and pay no toll.

I used to commute to Alexandria for work. Would spend about $15 a day for
tolls to use the Express Lanes. Totally worth it.

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btbuildem
At first I was appalled.. but then -- screw you and your cars (myself
included). It is a horrible solution that we've had for decades, and something
has to change. There's no better way than a suplex to the wallet.

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neiled
Wonder if there will be any exemptions for high occupancy or EVs or whatever.
Not necessarily saying there should be, but wouldn't be the first time a
'special' lane has exemptions.

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6DM
I was just thinking yesterday that I wish there was some way to "call in" with
a time to have the toll removed when car pooling.

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finid
_Because toll prices are based on demand, it is difficult to predict exactly
what the tolls will be at any given time._

Why should toll prices be based on demand?

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mikeash
Because the whole point of these express lanes is that they're (supposed to
be) always moving quickly and never congested. The price is set to whatever it
takes to achieve that. People who don't want to pay can take the normal lanes.

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John23832
Sounds like NoVa/DC. Nothing to see here.

