San Diego Drivers Willing to Pay to Pick Up Speed in Carpool Lanes

On a small section of freeway in San Diego County, motorists with a few extra dollars to spare can buy their way past gridlock and into a set of fast-moving freeway lanes.

It is a privilege that rankles some who refer to the lanes as “Lexus lanes” and complain that they are just another example -- like valet parking and gated communities -- of rich folks buying their way around the hassles of living in crowded urban communities.

Critics worry that, if expanded, the San Diego County freeway program would create a two-tiered highway class structure: well-to-do drivers speeding to work on free-flowing lanes while everyone else idles in maddening congestion.

“It discriminates against people who are of low economic means,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, a longtime member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The freeway program is part of an experiment that many transportation experts see as a possible solution to Southern California’s worsening traffic problems.

On Interstate 15, just outside San Diego, an eight-mile stretch of carpool lanes has been converted to High Occupancy Toll lanes. The lanes are open to solo drivers willing to pay tolls of 50 cents to $4 to cruise past the daily bumper-to-bumper congestion. Carpools still use the lanes free of charge.

The lanes have been so popular -- attracting at least 20,000 regular toll-paying motorists -- that the three-year pilot project soon will be permanently expanded to a 20-mile stretch. The tolls are generating more than $1 million a year to fund a new bus line.

San Diego County officials are considering similar programs on two other freeways near downtown San Diego. “It’s been an incredibly popular program,” said Kim Kawada, a regional planner for the San Diego Assn. of Governments.

High Occupancy Toll lanes are an example of a traffic management tool known as “value pricing,” which relies on the power of the free market to manage traffic flow. Under value pricing, freeway tolls increase during peak commute times to discourage motorists from driving during those congested periods.

In Los Angeles County, home of the worst traffic congestion in the nation, the idea of value pricing has failed to gain much traction. “There is a concern that people are already paying for the freeways through their gas taxes, and why should they have to pay again?” said Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts, who sits on the MTA board.

Nevertheless, academics and transportation experts throughout the country say the idea is gaining momentum, thanks to the success of the San Diego County freeway project.

“The research community sees this as a great opportunity to fix some serious traffic problems,” said Brian Taylor, director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies.

Time, Stress Are Factors

Motorists who use the High Occupancy Toll lanes on Interstate 15 say the lanes make their drives more predictable and less stressful.

“It’s just freed me up to leave whenever I want,” said Thomas Baden, a senior executive at a guitar manufacturer who commutes from El Cajon to Escondido every day. He said the $40 a month he pays for tolls is well spent because he has eliminated much of his commuting stress and gets more time with his family. “People need to put a perspective on what their time is worth,” he said.

Larry Aker, a construction company executive whose work sends him throughout the San Diego region, said he uses the lanes to ensure that he gets to his meetings on time. “I do it more for an added certainty factor,” he said.

Leonard “Bud” Gminski, general manager of a media company who has used the lanes since the program started in 1996, rejects the suggestion that it discriminates against the poor. He noted that drivers can keep toll costs low by using the lanes only when absolutely necessary.

“I’m far from rich,” he said. “But if you have to pick up your kid at school at a certain time, $3 or $4 is not too much to spend. It’s an expense that anyone who is working can afford.”

Gminski estimates that the lanes halve his regular 40-minute commute from his home in the Poway area to downtown San Diego. He suggests that the program be expanded to let toll payers zip past the ramp meters that regulate traffic flow entering the freeway.

Some cities with notoriously bad traffic, including Houston and New York, already operate similar programs. Denver, San Francisco and Seattle are studying the idea.

“There is a lot of interest, particularly with the success of the San Diego project,” said Lee Munnich, a senior fellow with the Hubert Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.

San Diego County’s High Occupancy Toll lanes were the brainchild of Jan Goldsmith, a former assemblyman and mayor of Poway.

More than six years ago, Goldsmith noticed that the carpool lanes on Interstate 15 near Mira Mesa were carrying only about 10% of their capacity. Goldsmith, now a Superior Court judge, also worried that the county lacked the money for much-needed transit services. To solve both problems, he suggested selling the excess capacity in the carpool lanes to solo drivers and using the extra revenue to pay for new bus services.

The idea had the support of some lawmakers and transportation planners, but was harshly criticized by some of his constituents. “There was a lot of resistance to the idea of letting people buy their way out of traffic,” he said.

Goldsmith pressed ahead with the project anyway and eventually received $10 million in federal and state funding to test the idea for three years, starting in 1996. Since then, overall use of the carpool lanes has nearly doubled, with about a quarter of that traffic attributed to toll-paying solo drivers.

The tolls, collected electronically with the use of transponders mounted on vehicle windshields, vary from 50 cents in off-peak hours to $4 during prime commuting periods. They generate $1.2 million annually.

Poll Finds 70% Support

A recent poll of San Diego motorists found nearly 70% support for the High Occupancy Toll lanes.

In January, the San Diego Assn. of Governments voted to expand the project to a 20-mile length of Interstate 15. The regional planning agency also has recommended testing High Occupancy Toll lanes on Interstate 5 and Interstate 805 in San Diego.

The project is routinely cited by academics and others throughout the country as a successful example of value-pricing strategies. But its success has been largely overshadowed in Southern California by the problems of other toll road experiments.

The 91 Express Lanes -- a privately owned tollway between Anaheim and Riverside County -- charges a toll that increases during peak commute times. But that tollway has been mired in political controversy, largely because the state gave the toll road operators the right to forestall competition by blocking improvements on the Riverside Freeway. Orange County transportation officials are planning to buy the privately owned lanes and eliminate the tolls. Three other toll roads in Orange County are struggling with lower-than-expected revenue.

In Los Angeles County, the idea of introducing tolls or fees to manage traffic flow seems to have more critics than supporters. Hasan Ikhrata, manager of transportation planning for the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said he contributed to a 1994 study that recommended testing value-pricing strategies on some freeways in Southern California. “Politically, it didn’t get anywhere,” he said. “We were told in a very clear way by our board: Don’t ever talk about fees.”

Still, he said, regional transportation officials are studying the possibility of High Occupancy Toll lanes on the Antelope Valley Freeway at the northern edge of Los Angeles County.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said he would like to study the success of San Diego County’s High Occupancy Toll lanes, but vowed to oppose charging motorists fees to drive in existing freeway lanes.

“I do not believe in taking away something that the public now gets for free,” he said. “It’s bad public policy. It’s terrible politics.”

Instead, Yaroslavsky said he prefers to rely on incentives, such as offering free parking for carpool users, to reduce freeway congestion. Los Angeles County officials also point out that Los Angeles and San Diego counties differ in some key roadway and traffic characteristics.

Yaroslavsky seems to have the pulse of his constituents. A recent survey by the MTA found that almost two-thirds of the county residents who were polled opposed the idea of charging tolls to let solo drivers use carpool lanes.

Little Excess Capacity

Transportation officials also note that most carpool lanes in Los Angeles County already are heavily used and have little excess capacity to sell to solo drivers. A recent state study found that, on average, carpool lanes in Los Angeles County were operating at about 67% of capacity, with several freeway segments nearly full during peak commute periods.

Los Angeles County’s carpool lane system -- the largest in the nation -- also has enjoyed increasing popularity among motorists. From 2000 to 2001, the number of carpoolers using the lanes increased by 11%, from 281,000 to 312,000 vehicles per day.

Ray Maekawa, an MTA planning engineer, said High Occupancy Toll lanes might be feasible on some of the less-congested freeways in the outlying reaches of the county, such as the Pomona Freeway, connecting Riverside and Los Angeles counties.

But even Goldsmith concedes that his traffic solution for Interstate 15 might not work everywhere. “What is right for the I-15 corridor in San Diego County may not work for L.A.,” he said.