Driven away?

Some commuters are likely to be priced out of future toll routes in Md. and Va. that could cost $200 or more — a week

By Michael Dresser

September 7, 2008

Bridge girders and bracings are partially in place for a new I-695 to I-95 ramp. (Baltimore Sun photo by Algerina Perna / September 4, 2008)

Traveling the congested highways in the Baltimore-Washington region may take a psychological toll now. In the not-so-far-off future, the cost may be in dollars and cents.

Four major road projects in the region will open in the next five to 10 years with tolls attached. To drive on the Intercounty Connector being built in Prince George's and Montgomery counties, you'll have to pay the Maryland toll authority. The state will also take your money for using the new express lanes on Interstate 95 northeast of Baltimore.

To use the "express" lanes that bypass backups on three busy interstates in Northern Virginia, you'll need to pay a toll to the private operator that helped finance the construction.

And Maryland is considering the possibility of using tolls to add new lanes on several other highways across the state.

If forecasters are on the mark, the tolls won't be cheap. To keep traffic moving quickly in the express lanes being added to I-95 in Maryland and Virginia, some drivers will have to be priced out of those lanes. To keep the ICC free-flowing, some would-be travelers between Baltimore and Rockville will face prices so high that they'll choose to take local roads.

One recent study put the cost of a congestion-free ride from the Pentagon to Dumfries, Va., in the planned high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes of Interstates 95 and 395 at more than $20 for the roughly 35-mile trip. One way. For a five-day-a-week commuter, the weekly bill for congestion-free travel could exceed $200. A similar commute, along the Capital Beltway from Springfield to Tysons Corner, could be just as costly.

Ronald F. Kirby, transportation director for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, said that when officials started considering those projects, they assumed that tolls would run about 20 cents a mile. But the council's subsequent studies have shown that to be a low estimate.

"The toll can get up to as high as $1 a mile or $1.50 a mile for short segments at certain times of the day," Kirby said.

And if you're thinking of heading that way the day before Thanksgiving in 2015, be warned. According to Kirby, there are no limits to the tolls the operator can charge to keep express traffic moving.

Maryland officials said they have made no projections of how much tolls will be on I-95 or the ICC.

To make sense economically, any highway project that relies on what is known as "congestion pricing" - having motorists pay to avoid sitting in traffic - can't eliminate backups in the other lanes entirely.

"If the general-purpose lanes are free-flowing, by definition congestion pricing doesn't work," said Maryland Transportation Secretary John D. Porcari.

Reflecting the views of Gov. Martin O'Malley, Porcari has shifted both rhetoric and policy away from toll lanes as a means to finance major projects. For instance, the Maryland Department of Transportation eliminated tolls from studies of how to widen the Baltimore Beltway - a possibility that had been raised by the Ehrlich administration transportation secretary, Robert L. Flanagan.

Porcari hasn't ruled out the use of congestion pricing on other projects, however, calling it one tool in highway planners' tool kit.

C. Kenneth Orski, editor and publisher of an online newsletter that follows trends in public-private partnerships such as toll roads, said Virginia motorists will be getting used to congestion pricing faster than Marylanders.

"What Virginia is doing is sort of a portent of what is to come throughout the region - which is a pretty widespread use of toll lanes," he said.

The good news for motorists is that there would be no toll booths.

To use the system, you would have to have a transponder such as the ones used for EZ-Pass or agree to be billed based on photos of your license plate passing through electronic collection stations.

Critics of congestion pricing call it an elitist concept, saying " Lexus lanes" or " Bentley boulevards" allow the well-to-do to cruise while the poor and middle class stew in backups.

But proponents of congestion pricing say it's all about choice. They note that people will be free to make their own economic decisions about what their time is worth.