I represent Renton on a committee of local officials chartered to review various concepts for adding a new toll lane to I-405, along with much-desired flyover connections between I-405 and I-167. The extra lane and flyover connections would reduce congestion, but the tolling aspect obviously makes it controversial. It’s very important that any chosen concept is as fair to all users and taxpayers as possible. Here is the latest news on this topic in the Bellevue Reporter.
Thanks Randy for being part of the committee – we’re well served when you’re using your noodle.
Hot Lanes
Mr. Corman, While there may be other reasons to implement HOT lanes on I-405 (though I doubt it), revenue generation is one one of them. Look at the net cost for installation and operations vs. revenue on the 167 HOT lanes and you will see that they operate at a loss, and will likely never pay back the installation expense.
Carpool lanes, with open to all times in the off hours based on traffic statistics, are simpler, more cost effective, provide transit with a path through traffic, and better encourage carpooling and transit use.
WSDOT’s love of HOT lanes is not supported by their own data on 167 if you look at it objectively. Don’t let them implement a similar, wasteful, and confusing system on I-405.
Renton Resident and daily 167 driver.
Re: Hot Lanes
Have you ever driven on 405 at rush hour? The HOV lane is at a dead stop in many places. People are giving up going to the slight inconvenience of carpooling and bus riding as the return can be so little.
Hopefully the transportation discussions focus on options beyond single car use, and not just petty changes like HOV or HOT lanes. All those “solutions” do is push the problem back a little bit. This region is notoriously behind the times when it comes to mass transit (rail). Of course, that most likely will not happen until the WA constitution is changed to allow gas taxes to be better spread around on more creative options instead of only going towards roads.
Re: Hot Lanes
Southbound on 405 near I-90 the HOV speeds drop because too many idiots try to exit the HOV lane at the last moment to hit either the I-90 exit or the Facotria exit. They drop to 10 mph to merge, rather than merge half a mile before hand.
The HOV lanes there should not allow for exiting and merging there for about a mile – they do that on I5 northbound near the 405 exit and it really helped making people not wait for the last moment.
Re: Hot Lanes
same thing happens on southbound 405 near 167. People drive the HOV lane until they are past the Benson road overpass. Then they drop down to 10 mph – or less – while trying to merge into the 167 southbound exit. The southbound 405 HOV lane should not allow exiting starting at the Maple Valley highway until past 167.
hot lanes are a way the government steals twice.
what needs to be done is the shoulders removed and if you get disabled your car gets towed. than we have 5 lanes of travel and not bottle neckd.
i405/sr167 congestion will never be fixed until the state actually listens to people who travel it and not some guy sitting in a construction trailer who has no clue how to get his sandwhich out of the parer bag.
but we all know they government wont listen to the people
There’s an Autoroute in France near Paris that does that – there are roving tow trucks that have an articulated arm. When a car breaks down, the tow truck driver parks behind the car and extends the arm over the car, puts two Kevlar straps around the car and swings the car over trafic onto the bed of the tow truck. In the process, the Kevlar straps dent the heck out of the car.
The car is gone in under a minute.
Driving down from Bellevue, there’s defiantly room for one more lane on 405. If you made the disabled driver pay $1000 or so, you could pay for the roving tow trucks.
Agree on I405 being overloaded, even the carpool lane. They seemed to fix the I90 interchage going north but going south there is a parking lot. A toll there won’t solve anything unless they put a lane or more there all the way to 167.
-H
Thanks for good stuff